AN 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE SOCIETY OF THE ALUMM 



OF 



DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, 



AT THEIR FIRST TRIENNIAL MEETING, 



JULY 95, 1855. 



BY 



SAMUEL OILMAN BROWN, 



PROFESSOR IN THE COLLEGE. 



WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUEST 



CONCORD, N. H.: 
PRESS OF McFARLAND & JENKS. 

1856. 



mH"i 
, s&s 



AN 



ADDRESS, 



DELIVERED BEFOEE 



THE SOCIETY OF THE ALUMNI 

OF 

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, 

AT THEIR FIRST TRIENNIAL MEETING, 
JUL.Y 95, 1855. 

BY 

SAMUEL OILMAN BROWN. 

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 



CONCORD, N. H.: 

PRESS OF McFARLAND & JENKS 

1856. 




V 



.1> ^^ 



S 



^ 



^ 



JfBW YORK PUBL. LIBR. 
IN EXCUANQS. 



ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the Alumni : 

You cannot feel too deeply, nor can I strongly 
enough express, the disappointment under which we 
all labor, that no one of the eminent men whom 
you earnestly solicited, fresh from fields of hard won 
fame, from toil and strife in that great world w^hich, 
from our retreats, we look upon with curiosity and 
perhaps envy, should have inaugurated this your filial 
enterprise ; should have stood here as the organ and 
minister of that ever benignant Mother, who waits in 
matronly dignity this day, to receive the congratu- 
lations of her children — her arms outstretched, as of 
old — a mother's welcome on her tongue — a mother's 
pride overflowing her heart. Next to a failure, I am 
afraid you will think it, that almost on the eve of our 
festival, the surely not ungrateful labor should have 
been thrown upon hands already overtasked with the 
duties of the season. And yet you will remember, 
I am sure, that this is a day of enjoyment and not of 
criticism — a day of indulgence and festivity, of retro- 
spection and of hope. 

It is singular that we come together as a body of 
Alumni, in a public and formal manner, now for the 



first time. Lustrum after lustrum has passed un- 
noticed. The semi-centennial year of the College, 
deserving to be marked by the whitest stone, signal- 
ized by that great decision which gave its charter 
new force and vitality, was marked by no general 
gathering as to a jubilee. And now, reckoning ah 
inciinahiilis gentis, a little more than a hundred years 
have passed since was first cast into the soil of a 
quiet town in Connecticut, the seed whose mature 
and transplanted product here spreads its shade and 
offers its fruit. 

The occasion determines, in general, the subject 
proper to occupy our attention. Our thoughts turn 
first and instinctively to the College which early nur- 
tured us, which opened for our inspection the science 
and literature of the world, led us onward with en- 
couragement, and gave us some discipline for the 
sterner scenes of life. Our attention might naturally 
be called altogether to its history ; to what it prom- 
ised and what it has performed. Yet to follow such 
a plan to any good purpose, looking to the discerning 
of principles, would require great care and exactness, 
and a more protracted consideration than we are 
allowed ; while to neglect it entirely — to recall none 
of the memories which are struggling for utterance — 
none of the central elements in the life of the College 
— would seem unnatural and unfilial. 

One great difficulty lies in so selecting from ample, 
but unordered materials, as not to go beyond the pro- 
prieties of the day, and in so combining them as to 
give a unity of interest. Perhaps we shall best meet 
the wishes of the Association by looking at some of 
the objects, methods and difficulties of the College, 



while we refer, so far as may be necessary, to the 
noticeable epochs and incidents in its history ; so shall 
we the better judge how far we have reason to con- 
gratulate ourselves to-day, and for what it becomes us 
still to hope and strive. 

A college is to be distinguished from a university, 
on the one hand, and from an academy, or special 
school, on the other. An attempt to unite elements 
that are properly distinct, and perhaps incongruous, 
or to compel either institution to perform the functions 
of the others, would be for the injury of all. In the 
spiritless compound would be found neither the sharp- 
ness of the acid, nor the vigor of the alkali. To give 
a high sounding name and a profusion of nominal 
officers, with no scholars to be taught, and no funds 
to support the empty dignity, is a fault on the one 
side, just as calling the mind back from liberal excur- 
sions over the field of the largest knowledge, and 
binding it to a single special course of study, would 
be a fault on the other. Different schools may move 
with harmony and mutual profit side by side, or in 
concentric orbits, each silently affecting, but not dis- 
turbing the other, but those cannot be blended with- 
out mutual injury, whose objects and methods, whose 
discipline and culture, are radically diverse. 

A university has been defined to be " a sort of cor- 
porate establishment, instituted for the intellectual 
elevation of the community by means of publicly 
recognized teachers." "It exists for the purpose of 
training the people intellectually at that highest stage 
where education, strictly so called, ends, and the 
business of life begins. It is not an establishment for 
drilling boys, but for stimulating, enlightening, direct- 



6 

ing and elevating young men.'"^ A part of this defi- 
nition will apply to our colleges. They are public 
institutions, whose object is to furnish the highest 
general education; an education which shall liberalize 
the mind and amply prepare it for professional study, 
or any sphere of active life. A college, then, in striv- 
ing to realize its idea as an institution for a truly 
liberal education, aims primarily to impart a kind and 
degree of knowledge best suited to the nature of her 
pupil, and the ends she would subserve. She gives 
him some idea of the ever enlarging scope of the 
sciences ; a knowledge of languages and of nations ; 
a knowledge of civil economy, and of the laws of his 
own being. The inferior kinds of learning she sub- 
ordinates to the superior ; and by presenting knowl- 
edge in its vital organic connections, and not as if 
isolated, confers upon every part due honor. She 
unites discipline with attainment. She endeavors at 
once to inform and invigorate ; so that what is highest 
in dignity may control the life, and the educated 
man, like a well trained armv under a wise and ener- 
getic general, may move irresistibly over the fields of 
conquest. 

So, too, within the scope of her abilities, would 
the college, as a disciplinary school, control and direct 
every moral faculty. She would fortify the student 
against the sorcery of pleasure. She would lay her 
hand upon every petulant temper, and soothe it to 
calmness ; upon every ignoble purpose, and crush it 
out of existence. Every mind vacillating between 
the lower and the higher aims of life she would fix 
beyond possibility of change, that it might steadfastly 

* North British Review, May, 1855. 



hold on its way toward whatever is magnanimous and 
gentle, and pure and true. 

Beside these influences, there are in every college 
others, beyond and without the prescribed curriculum, 
bearing with constant and effective pressure upon the 
mind, modifying and shaping its affections ; influences 
none the less potent, because unseen and intangible ; 
influences made up of all the traditions of the place, 
of all objects of art and culture, of prevailing opin- 
ions and customs, of the achievements and fame of 
its scholars ; influences most effective with the finest 
minds, stimulating them to large endeavor, giving 
more seriousness to their meditations, more earnest- 
ness to their efforts ; influences which gather strength 
with the rolling years, and become more potent with 
every name upon the enlarging catalogue. 

This fact it is, among others, which gives a peculiar 
importance to the external condition of the college, 
the state of its buildings and grounds, its cabinets and 
apparatus. The observatory on the hill is an ever- 
present witness to the splendid achievements of the 
mind in one of the most mysterious fields of its labor. 
The library — how does it draw with ten thousand 
attractions toward scholarship and thought, and intel- 
lectual accomplishment. So too will the college edi- 
fices, if there be any architectural virtue in them, 
always be eloquent ; for architecture is peculiarly 
public and universal in its influence. Its structures 
are built for the wear of centuries. Their beauty is 
not ripe till ages have rolled over them ; till the foot- 
steps of pilgrims have worn the pavements 5 till the 
record of saints is sculptured on their votive tablets ; 
till the shrine of genius is erected within their enclos- 



8 

ures ; till the faith, and love, and endeavor of genera- 
tions, have sunk into their walls. Thus does a noble 
structure become a living representative, a kind of 
incarnation of the institution, the state, the age. And 
as the life of Athens still lingers, still shines in her 
ruined Parthenon, so does the existence and authority 
of a college or university become visible and tangible 
through its venerable buildings. In them it lives, 
though its officers and students pass away year by 
year towards 

" The unfathomable gulf, where all is still." 

It grows hoary and venerable amidst the fluctuations 
of society, — a rock which the swift-rushing currents 
of time chafe and wear, but cannot move, — touching 
with influences sombre and gentle every finer soul, 
and moulding it all the more effectively, because by 
a pressure so soft, yet so constant. 

To an imaginative mind every object of pictur- 
esqueness or beauty becomes an object of love. The 
spire that leaps heavenward, the bell that swings in 
the turret, each 

"jutty, frieze, 

Buttress or coigne of vantage," 

where the temple-haunting martlet 

" Hath made his pendent bed and proereant cradle," 

is seized by the fancy and clung to with ever-increas- 
ing tenacity. 

Perhaps we do not give prominence enough to 
these intangible, evanescent influences — the educa- 
tion of the sympathies, tastes, affections, prejudices if 
you please — the moving springs of the life of man, 



9 

which no future methods nor vicissitudes will essen- 
tially change. I have sometimes thought that in 
many a European university the least potent element 
of education is that of direct instruction. The j^eligio 
loci, the recollections and traditions, the quiet walks, 
the lofty chapels, the spacious halls — these, during 
the most impressible years, are silently giving shape 
and direction to the life. Toward these centres come 
trooping the memories of the distinguished in science 
and letters, from Bacon to Whewell ; from Spenser, a 
poor student, receiving in 1573 his first degree, to 
Tennyson, whose accumulated honors the plaudits of 
the theatre have scarcely ceased to echo. Lives there 
a soul so dull and earth-creeping as not to be touched 
by such influences ? " In those apartments," says the 
university to her docile pupil, " in those apartments, 
over yonder gateway, Newton elaborated his Prin- 
eipia ; in that lodge died Kichard Bentley ; yonder 
the musical voice of Heber pronounced his prize 
poem ; in that senate house stands the statue of Wil- 
liam Pitt ; in that hall Bacon, and Barrow, and Usher, 
and Burke, and Berkeley, look down from the silent 
canvas ; that desk was once eloquent with the voice 
of Chalmers, of Stewart, of Arnold; the wondrous 
arch which spans yonder chapel was thrown across 
by a builder whose genius has been the marvel of 
every succeeding architect, but whose modesty and 
humility thought it of no consequence to record his 
name. Go you, my son, and by assiduous labor, by 
fidelity, by noble purpose, by magnanimous effort, 
deserve what they attained. ^Kemember, resemble, 
persevere.' Let your life, like theirs, be wrought into 
that of the age in which you live, for the welfare of 



10 

man, for the glory of God," Are they few upon whom 
such influences are most powerful ? In the fullest 
extent it may be so ; yet the same may in part be 
said of the whole process of education ; for it is a dis- 
couraging though tj that by the majority so little of in- 
struction seems to be retained. Still we may under- 
estimate the influences of education, both the direct 
and the indirect, even on the least promising. Much 
must be thrown into the common stock of impressions, 
sentiments, habits, which can be traced to no specific 
source, which cannot well be weighed or measured, but 
which is not to be disregarded in the final result on 
character. And there are always some minds sensitive 
to the noblest influences. If one such, of the highest 
order, comes in a quarter of a century, it is enough. 
The ponderous bells, "swinging slow with solemn roar," 
which caught the music-loving ear of Milton, and sug- 
gested the solemn lines in the Penseroso, — the " dis- 
tant spires and antique towers," which prompted 
Gray's ode on the " Distant Prospect of Eton Col- 
lege," — the " cloistered seclusion," and " grand halls, 
hung round with pictures by Yerrio and Lely," which 
moved the imagination of Charles Lamb to writing 
the "Recollections of Christ's Hospital" — all these 
were doing a very evident work for the cultivation 
and refinement, the stability even, and the fame of 
England — for the cultivation and delight of all to 
whom Milton, and Gray, and Lamb are still compan- 
ions and friends. 

It was to realize some such idea of instruction and 
discipline, and general influence, that our fathers — 
trained in the severe schools of the old world, re- 
membering the learning of Cudworth, and Hooker, 



11 

and Taylor, and Milton, and Baxter, and such as they, 
and fearing the perils of ignorance — devised that 
course of education, at once thorough and liberal, on 
which all the culture of an ample commonwealth 
might be grafted. They regarded the college, not in 
its relations to individuals alone, but as a power in 
the state, as the germ in which were held inclosed 
the organic forces which should at last blossom into 
the fullest, richest, most varied and complete forms 
of cultivated life. As the ideas at the basis of the 
public education were mean or liberal, contracted and 
distorted, or expansive and true, so, they thought, 
would in a large degree be the character of the com- 
monwealth. Let us be grateful, thrice grateful, to 
them for their manly wisdom and their practical 
insight. The theories which would banish whatever 
learning cannot be turned to immediate account, 
which exalt an economical art at the expense of the 
more profound and far-reaching science ; which value 
the soul itself because it contrives so many ingenious 
machines, and not the machines as the mere ministers 
of the soul or evidences of its greatness, such theories 
they never heard of, or heard only to despise. 

Hence they caught up those old languages which 
the subtle genius of the Greek and Roman had elabo- 
rated, in which are hidden all the civilization of an- 
tiquity ; hence they seized the high mathematics, 
among whose pure and severe demonstrations the 
serene spirits of Copernicus and Newton were wont 
to move ; and made them the immovable and ample 
foundation on which all other knowledge and disci- 
pline might rest. Upon and about this they gathered 
the theoretical and practical learning of the times. 



12 

They taught the mind to know and master itself; 
then thoroughly to master whatever science, what- 
ever art came within the scope of its inquiries. They 
conceived the idea of " a complete and generous edu- 
cation/' somewhat according to the suggestion of 
Milton, as " that which fits a man to perform justly, 
skillfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both pri- 
vate and public, of peace and war" — a result none the 
less to be aimed at, and striven for, though impossible 
fully to realize. It matters little that they were unac- 
quainted with many things familiar to us. They had 
a purpose and plan, and did not work at random. 
They laid a foundation in anticipation of a structure 
far costlier, more ample and more beautiful than they 
themselves were able to rear. 

With the hope of intellectual discipline, they also 
associated the idea of a religious culture. They 
seemed equally anxious to avoid irreligious learning 
and ignorant religion. They would save learning from 
sciolism and infidelity, and religion from bigotry and 
superstition. They were imbued with the general 
spirit of that theology of the seventeenth century, 
which, whether right or wrong, was never contempt- 
ible. Religious and theological learning was felt to be 
important, not merely as furnishing a moral guide, but 
as invigorating and inspiring the intellect ; as raising 
us to the highest objects of contemplation, and afford- 
ing the most substantial and fruit-bearing knowledge. 
The motto for the seal of Harvard College, adopted as 
early as 1650, was, '^ In Christi gloriamr Somewhat 
later another was used, similar in import, " Christo et 
ecclesice'^ One of the laws, liberties and orders of 
Harvard College, established by President Dunster as 



13 

early as 1642,* announces, that " every one should con- 
sider the main end of his life and studies, to know God 
and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life f and the next 
statute is : " Seeing the Lord giveth wisdom, every one 
shall seriously, by prayer in secret, seek wisdom of 
him."*j* 

The spirit in which Yale College was established 
was the same. Its corporation, composed entirely of 
clerical members, is a living and permanent evidence 
of its character. It was the religious element, and 
not a mere abstract love of learning, which stimulated 
the efforts of the fathers of the state, and drew forth 
funds from the liberal. 

This spirit it was preeminently, which presided over 
the establishment of Dartmouth College. It is now a 
hundred years since Moor's school, founded by Eleazer 
Wheelock, took its name from the benevolent farmer 
in Lebanon, Connecticut, who gave it a house and two 
acres of land. It was instituted for the education of 
Indian youth, in order that they might afterward 
carry back to their own people the seeds, both of civ- 
ilization and Christianity, The history of that prelim- 
inary effort, its motives, its natural growth out of the 
spirit of the times, is yet to be written. A few years 
witnessed an enlargement, to some extent, of the 
school, and a still greater expansion of the ideas and 
purposes of its founders. They were no longer satis- 
fied with a simple Indian school, but wished for a 
college, with a sufiiciently ample charter, and larger 
immunities and privileges. They sought for it a 
situation where they might neither interfere with 
others, nor be overshadowed and hindered by others. 

*Quiiicy's Hist, of Harv. Univ., 1, 515. t^-j 1? 515. 



14 

One plan, not very seriously entertained, perhaps, was 
to remove it to lands on the Mississippi, given to 
officers engaged in the old French war ; another, to 
establish it in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, where 
liberal subscriptions were raised ; still another, to &x 
it at the city of Albany. Nor was it till after much 
travel, and the inspection of many places, that it was 
decided to rest upon these pine-clad plains, beneath 
the shadows of the granite mountains. Why this par- 
ticular ground was selected ; why in preference espe- 
cially to the spot four miles south, the junction of 
streams, marking the courses of traffic, and offering 
the most favorable sites, I do not know; but this 
region was fixed upon through the liberal offers of 
Gov. Wentworth, both of land for its funds, and of his 
aid in securing a charter ; and still further, in order 
that here, on the boundaries of two States, and far 
away under the northern skies, beyond any other col- 
lege, it might be near the tribes whose welfare was a 
prominent design of its benefactors, and still be within 
reach of " English youth," as the charter terms them, 
to which it was freely open. 

The charter of the college, dated in 1769, was 
drawn up with great care and skill. " Dartmouth 
College," said Mr. Webster, in 1818, " was established 
under a charter granted by the Provincial govern- 
ment ; but a better constitution for a college, or one 
more adapted to the condition of things under the 
present, in all material respects, could not now be 
framed. Nothing in it was found to need alteration 
at the Kevolution. * * ♦ :ij ^ charter of more 
liberal sentiments, of wiser provisions, drawn with 
more care, or in a better spirit, could not be expected 



15 

at any time, or from any source."* The year 1770 
witnessed the first clearing in the woods ; the building 
a few log huts, and the partial erection of a college 
edifice ; and more than all, the actual commencement 
of instruction. The motto of the college seal, " V02: 
damantis in desejio^' was vividly indicative of the actual 
condition of things. The inhabitants of the region 
were very few, and there was no prospect of rapid 
increase : it was difficult to conjecture whence the 
students should come, or how they could get here. 
There has hardly been a college established of late 
years, in our new States, which has not at its opening 
given a fairer promise of immediate prosperit}^ 

The first twelve or thirteen years were years of 
special trial. Funds were small, instruction neces- 
sarily limited, and students few. The Revolutionary 
war, though it did not interrupt the college exercises 
and disperse the students, as at Harvard and Yale, 
must have diminished their number, and materially 
affected their spirit. In 1781 and '82 the number of 
graduates was only four ; no larger than the first class 
that left the college. But from that time for thirty 
years, during the generally prosperous administration 
of the second President Wheelock and his coadjutors, 
it were moderate and almost stinted praise to say 
that the college moved onward with ever-increasing 
strength, offering the most reliable proof of the value 
of its discipline in the general stability and excellence, 
and the occasional eminence of its sons. 

The venerable Eleazer Wheelock closed his active 
and variously useful life April 24, 1779. His "last 
will and testament" concerning the college, as ex- 

* Works of Daniel Webster, voL v., p. 499. 



16 

pressed in one of his narratives, is worthy the com- 
panion of the Edwardses and Brainerds of the age. 
"It is my purpose, by the grace of God, to leave 
nothing undone within my power, which is suitable 
to be done, that this school of the prophets may be, 
and long continue to be, a pure fountain. And I do 
with my whole heart, luill this my purpose to my 
successors in the presidency/ of this seminar?/, to the latest 
posterity ; and it is my last ivill, never to he revolted ; and 
to God I commit it ; and my only hope and confidence 
for the execution of it are in Him alone, who has 
already done great things, and does still own it as his 
cause; and blessed be his name, that every present 
member of it, as well as great numbers abroad, I trust, 
do join their hearty amen with me." 

The year 1798 is distinguished by the establishment 
of the Medical School — a school iUustrated by the 
genius of Nathan Smith, its projector and founder; 
of whom it has not been thought invidious to say 
that he did " more for the improvement of phj^sic 
and surgery in New-England than any other man "* of 
his time ; by the taste and skill of Cyrus Perkins ; 
by the exquisite facility and penetration of James 
Freeman Dana ; by the elegant learning and refine- 
ment, and all-embracing scholarship of Daniel Oliver; 
by the still longer and more ample services of others, 
whom I need not and ought not to mention, for 
the worth of them is so fresh in your memories; 
and still more generally and widely honored by the 
skill and success of those who have gone from it to 
their various posts of duty in the world. 

Of the studies and discipline of that earlier period, 

* Kingsley's notice of Yale Coll., Quart. Reg., Feb., 1836, p. 207. 



17 

I have not been able to learn a great deal. The 
requisitions for admission were low, the means of 
fitting for college were very imperfect, and many of 
the studies inadequately pursued. I remember hear- 
ing one of the older graduates say that the first lesson 
of his class in mathematics was twenty pages in Eu- 
clid, the instructor remarking that he should require 
only the captions of the propositions, but if any 
doubted the truth of them he might read the demon- 
strations, though for his part his mind was perfectly 
satisfied. In stories like this, however, we must allow 
something to the genius of the narrator, and may fairly 
be of the mind of that earnest reader of the travels of 
Capt. Lemuel Gulliver, when he roundly and inde- 
pendently asserted that "there were some things in 
the book which he could not believe." 

To some important events in the history of the 
college — the founding of the two prominent Lit- 
erary Societies, whose libraries have acquired so 
much value — the writing and acting of plays — the 
Quarter days — the Carmen Sceculare — we can barely 
allude. 

Other early customs must be passed over almost as 
lightly. Owing in part to the later period at which 
Dartmouth was founded, and in part to its position, 
some methods of restraint and control familiar to the 
universities of England, and the oldest colleges in 
New-England, were never adopted in ours. 

"The punishment of boxing or cuffing," once in 
vogue at Yale and Harvard, was never introduced 
here. According to President Woolsey, "It was ap- 
plied before the Faculty to the luckless offender, by 
the President; towards whom the culprit, in a standing 

2 



18 

position, inclined his head, while the blows fell in quick 
succession upon either ear. No one seems to have been 
served in this way except freshmen and commencing 
' sophimores/ " At Harvard the energy of such modes 
of discipline was still more remarkable. On one occa- 
sion, according to the historian, a student, for speaking 
blasphemous words, was " sentenced to be publicly 
whipped before all the scholars. The exercise took 
place in the library, in presence of the Students, the 
Faculty, and such of the Overseers as chose to attend. 
The offender kneeled, the president prayed, the disci- 
pline was administered, and the solemnities closed by 
another prayer from the President." * Such ignoble 
punishments were dispensed with about the middle 
of the last century. 

Another practice, quite as unusual now, continued 
to a later time, and gathered some strength here — 
that custom of the seniors exacting a certain amount 
of service from the freshmen. In the older colleges, 
long established custom had grown into an unwritten 
system of common law, against the violation of which 
public opinion, and sometimes the civil law itself, was 
brouo-ht to bear. It was earlv enacted at Harvard, 
among other things, that " No freshman shall wear his 
hat in the college yard, unless it rains, hails or snows, 
provided he be on foot, and have not both hands full." 
" No freshman shall speak to a senior, with his hat on ; 
or have it on in a senior's chamber, or in his own, if a 
senior be there. All freshmen shall be obliged to go 
on any errand * * * for any of his seniors, gradu- 
ates or undergraduates, at any time, except in study 
hours. "f 

♦ Quincy, L, 189. t /&., IL, 539. 



19 

Similar customs prevailed with us, though they 
never consolidated into a system. Perhaps they never 
worked over-smoothly ; and at last, whether through 
the increasing ignorance and ineptitude of the fresh- 
men, I will not say, the mistakes they made (if cur- 
rent reports be relied on) were so frequent — the 
almost miraculous changes which liquids and solids 
underwent in the passage from the shop where they 
were purchased, to the room where they were used, 
were so common — the oil sputtered so in the lamp, 
and the ink became so pale or so unctuous — that 
about the year 1795 the custom was entirely aban- 
doned, and passed quietly away, among those few 
other usages which we remember with a smile. 

Both these practices — the corporal punishment, 
and the subordination of one class to another — 
arose, and were sustained from the general feeling 
of society. The punishment was regarded much, I 
suppose, as the same is looked upon in the English 
schools of our day ; and that one class should render 
a moderate service to another was a practical demon- 
stration of the principle of reverence for orders and 
ranks, which was generally accepted as healthful. 

The first quarter of the century covers the most 
critical period in the history of the College — a period 
of difficulties, of struggle and contest. I would rather 
pass it over, would not the omission seem more cen- 
surable than a reference to it. After the lapse of 
more than a generation, we view the agitating events 
of those days in the calm light of history, giving 
credit for sincerity and earnest endeavor to both sides, 
and preserving our interest mainly in the issues that 
were determined. How the contest came to be com- 



20 

plicated with politics ; how personal feeling, of neces- 
sity, intlamed the controversy, as the discussion be- 
came protracted and was found to involve such re- 
sults, it is quite unnecessary to say. Let all that was 
temporary and accidental, all that was personal and 
private, sink into oblivion, and there yet rises before 
us a principle indestructible, and that cannot be for- 
gotten — the faith and defence of which has added to 
the fame of many — the establishing of which has 
given security to every eleemosynary institution, to 
every charity in the land, if not, indeed, a stronger 
tenure to every most private trust. The guardians 
of the College were moved by a profound conviction 
of the justice, equity and vital consequence of the 
question. Otherwise, it might not then, at least, have 
received the thorough defence of Smith and Mason, 
Hopkinson and Webster, nor the luminous and ample 
decision of Marshall and Story — a decision which, 
not over-estimated, I suppose, in the judgment pro- 
nounced upon it by Chancellor Kent, has gone far 
beyond the immediate issue, and, by removing our 
colleges from the fluctuating influence of party and 
faction, has helped to make them what they should 
be — high neutral powers in the state ; devoted to 
the establishing and inculcating of principles ; where 
may shine the lumen sieciim — the dry light of wisdom 
and learning, untinged by the vapors of the cave or 
the breath of the forum. 

How earnest was the College for a thorough argu- 
ment ; what efforts she made to secure it, though, in 
her poverty, she was literally begging bread from door 
to door ; how learned and subtle were the discussions ; 
how long and anxiously the decision was waited for. 



21 

you, many of you well remember ; and when at last 
the tidings came — one week from Washington — and 
the first sentence of the letter from Mr. Webster — 
"All is safe and certain," — announced the result, the 
hearts of many sprung up with unwonted elasticity. 
The news was received by all friends of the College 
with profound joy; by some with exultation, by others 
with a more sober satisfaction, as at the demonstration 
and establishing of a vital principle. Some, perhaps, 
had already received monitions that the sands of their 
glass were running with strange swiftness, and nearly 
all were unusually divested of the feelings of personal 
litigants. 

The College was probably never in better spirit for 
study, and every effort which becomes scholars, than 
at the period when so much existed to divert the 
attention. Revolutions are said to be fruitful of great 
men, and thus, perhaps, we may in part account for it, 
(parvis comijonere magna,) that so many of our distin- 
guished alumni bear date from about that time. The 
future was indeed uncertain, instructors few and over- 
tasked, funds scanty, but there remained a spirit which 
supplied every deficiency. The subjects familiarly 
discussed — the solicitudes which the students in some 
measure shared — the uncertainties under which they 
labored — the sympathies which were excited — all 
furnished the best stimulus for intellectual improve- 
ment, and the best assurance of thoughtfulness and 
self-restraint. 

The general course and spirit of every institution 
largely depends on its ruling minds. May I, without 
violation of propriety, advert to some of the men of 
that, and a later day, whose names are indissolubly 



22 



associated with tlie progress of ours. Of the perma- 
nent instructors, one still remains to receive our con- 
gratulations/^' one to whom the young may look up 
with reverence, and whom the old may greet as a 
friend; changed a little in appearance, like the old 
familiar house he has so long lived in, but within, the 
same generous heart and sagacious mind. Another f 
— it seems but as yesterday that his familiar and ven- 
erable form moved amongst us — was gathered to his 
fathers, full of years and of honor. How can we help 
remembering with gratitude his serene and pure life, 
his simplicity of character, his scrupulous and con- 
spicuous integrity, his untiring fidelity. Of yet an- 
other who had some share in the general responsi- 
bilities of the day, some part in the multifarious works 
of instruction and government, it does not become 
me to speak. Admiratione te potius quam temporalihus 
laiidihiis, et si natura suppeditet, cemulatione decoremus. 

If from the officers of the College we turn our atten- 
tion to its board of Trustees for the first quarter of 
the century, we shall find quite an uncommon collec- 
tion of persons of eminent intellectual ability. Some 
united thoroui>^h learning; in the law with the far- 
reaching views of statesmen. Some were profound 
metaphysicians and theologians. There were men 
well versed in affairs, men of immovable firmness, of 
imsullied probity, of deep religious convictions. 

There rises first before the memory the somewhat 
attenuated and angular form of Nathaniel Mies — 
a schoolmate of the elder Adams, whom he loved 
his life long, and mainly, it would seem, because at 
school John Adams was the terror of the big bad 

* Rev. Dr. Siiurtleff. t Prof. Adams. 



23 

boys, who, in his absence, would oppress the Uttle 
ones, — a graduate of Nassau Hall, — a follower of 
Jefferson in politics, yet practically rather conserva- 
tive, and of Calvin in theology, yet apparently some- 
times verging toward his opponents, — an acute meta- 
physician, a little inclined to the opposite side, — half 
author, in conjunction with Dr. Burton, of the ''Taste- 
scheme^' so called, yet walking independently, and not 
precisely agreeing with his sharp-minded friend, — a 
great reader, keeping up remarkably with the progress 
of science, and renewing in his old age his knowledge 
of Latin, — a shrewd judge and an indefatigable oppo- 
nent. Beside him stood Elijah Paine, with a physical 
frame "put together with sinews of brass, — his voice 
clear and audible at the distance of three quarters 
of a mile," — remarkable for high-toned integrity, — 
clear-minded, honest-hearted and upright, — of whom 
it was said by a most competent judge,* " that the 
supposition of any thing like injustice or oppression 
where Elijah Paine was present, was a palpable ab- 
surdity, not to be believed for a moment," — appear- 
ing sometimes to be severe when he really meant to 
be only just and true, — a little obstinate, perhaps, 
especially if any good or right thing was opposed, 
and perfectly inflexible if it was opposed by unfair 
and improper means.f 

Side by side was seen Charles Marsh, a lawyer more 
thoroughly read than either — on whose " solid, immov- 
able, quieting strength" one might lean and rest, — if 
erring, erring with a right purpose, — simple and with- 

* The late Mr. West, of Charlestown. 

t For the characters of Judge Niles and Judge Paine, and in a degree 
for that of Mr. Marsh, the writer is much indebted to the recollection of 
Rev. Joseph Tracy, of Boston, and Rev. Dr. Wheeler, of Burlington. 



24 

out pretension, like his relative, Mr. Mason, but when 
once engaged in any cause, unflagging and unyielding, 
bringing to bear upon every subject the strength of a 
penetrating and tenacious understanding, and resting 
with perfect confidence and fearlessness upon his own 
convictions of both right and duty. 

Of the same general character, of transparent pur- 
pose, of remarkable equanimit}^, undisturbed by dififi.- 
culties, and serene in uprightness, was Timothy Farrar, 
whose eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated, 
though he was drawing toward the farthest verge of 
the ordinary limit of human life, and who finall}^, in 
1847, was gathered to his grave in peace, at the ex- 
treme age of one hundred years. In contrast, yet 
in harmony, was seen Thomas W. Thompson — like 
Judge Paine, a graduate and a tutor of Harvard, — 
of courtly ways, refined and cultivated in manners, 
with deep religious convictions, and a supporter of 
every thing good in circumstances where a loose 
holding to principle would have subjected him to less 
inconvenience. 

Contemporary with these were Rev. Drs. Paj'son 
and McFarland, whose praise was in all the churches, 
and whose names added dignity and strength to what- 
ever society or institution they were connected with. 
And if we follow down the list, how soon do we come 
upon the ever-honored name of Ezekiel Webster, then 
in the fullness of uncommon manly beauty and undis- 
puted intellectual preeminence. 

" His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead, 

******* 

The sense, and spirit, and the light divine, 
At the same moment in his steadfast eye, 
Were virtue's native crest, the immortal soul's 
Unconscious meek self-heraldry." 



25 

There was yet another, taken from us but as yester- 
day, whose name need not be uttered here beside that 
ever hospitable abode within the glance of our eye, 
alive still with his presence, its very walls exhaling the 
breath of courtesy and magnanimity, sagacity and wis- 
dom * But I pause. Am I not introducing you to a 
congregation of senators ? Would that from the mar- 
ble or the canvas every one of them looked down upon 
us in our halls or libraries, so that our vanity might 
be rebuked by their presence, and we insensibly lifted 
to higher regions of thought, of purpose, of life. 

I do not propose to apply any very rigid text to 
the history of the College, yet it may be expected 
that we should at least refer to some of the charac- 
teristics which have marked her course. I think it may 
be said that she has endeavored to establish herself 
upon principles, both in literature and in morals. Some 
have thought her not supple and flexible enough. 
Her faults have not been on the side of vacillation 
and indecision. 

She has generally been distinguished, farther, by a 
wise conservatism. She has not been hasty to accept 
new theories in education ; she has not been impatient 
of the old methods, where they have been tested and 
their fruit demonstrated to be good. With all the cry 
and din that has sometimes been raised in favor of 
the immediately practical, she has never forgotten the 
need of studies speculative and recondite. She has 
given their proper place to facts, but has given a 
higher place to ideas. That which has been proved, 
that which is true, that which is good, she has clung 

* To none but to those unfamiliar with Hanover is it necessary to mention 
the name of Mills Olcott. 



26 

to, biding her time, if some of her friends even have 
been doubtful. 

Her course has at the same time been marked by a 
tempered and sure progress — a progress sure, because 
not spasmodic, but natural and healthful ; because 
moderate, ascertained, and at every step, secured. 
She has had few impulses, either from a large acces- 
sion of students, or from remarkable accumulation of 
funds, but has increased by gradual increments, to be 
tested at somewhat distant intervals. Her measures, 
even if not always approved, have not averted the 
affections of her friends ; neither has she in general 
lagged behind their sympathies. She has endeavored 
so to adjust the harness, as to enable her to bend 
forward with all the weight of her accumulated 
strength, as well as to hold back when the vehicle 
would, by natural impulse, rush down the declivity 
with too much violence. 

And that every energy may be rightly controlled, 
she has endeavored to pervade her discipline and her 
studies by religious ideas ; ideas the most profound, 
most subtle, most lofty, and of widest scope. She 
would teach her students to contemplate affairs from 
a position high enough to embrace the amplest hori- 
zon, that in public life they may be statesmen of 
generous sympathies, of vigorous effort, of unsullied 
integrity ; and that in every profession they may rise 
to the full dignity of their calling — in medicine, rev- 
erently searching into the mysteries of the wonderful 
microcosm, — in law,. comprehending its grounds and 
principles, administering it with incorruptible fidelity, 
and obeying it as the voice of God, — and in the- 
ology, at once humble and daring, yielding to faith 



• 27 

the things that belong to faith, yet soaring immeasur- 
ably beyond the farthest scope of philosophy under 
the guidance of revelation. 

What then are some of the difficulties of realizing 
the aims of the College ? One is found in the very 
extent of the ground to be gone over, compared with 
the time allowed for the work. Within the last thirty, 
and much more, the last fifty years, many new sciences 
have been created, and the boundaries of all have been 
greatly enlarged. Some modern languages, which then 
were hardly known amongst us, now form an essential 
part of the furniture of an educated man ; without 
which he cannot enter upon the thorough and scien- 
tific study of any liberal profession ; without which he 
can master neither history, nor criticism, nor art. The 
pursuit of philology, under the severe methods of later 
scholars, has given to the ancient languages a new 
life, and a modern interest. We cannot study our 
own language without knowing them. Old text-books 
are abandoned. Methods more thorough and more 
generous are rendered necessary. And yet the time 
of the curriculum has not increased, and therefore, 
relatively, is diminished. The danger then is, not- 
withstanding improved means, of superficial and not 
thorough learning, of minds inflated with conceit and 
not full with knowledge, nor humble under a convic- 
tion of ignorance. There is not a department which 
is not clamorous for more time for justice to itself, for 
profit to its pupils. 

The only remedies are to make the standard of ad- 
mission higher, or that some specific studies of the 
present college course should be relegated to the 
academies or special schools, or reserved for the few 



28 

whose taste for them is strong, or trusted to that 
general and cultivated love of learning which urges 
its possessor into every attractive field ; thus leaving 
ampler space to those studies reckoned fundamental, 
and more strictly disciplinary ; — or still again, to add 
a year or two to the college course, so as to afford 
room for a more extensive pursuit of some studies, 
or the introduction of others of great importance. 
Whether changes like these be practicable, it is not my 
purpose to inquire. Either of the propositions would 
be determined in the affirmative, "were it not," as our 
venerable professor used sometimes to say, in deciding 
perplexing questions, " were it not for countervailing 
objections in the negative." 

But against the last there lies a difficulty which 
also bears with much force against our present ar- 
rangement, viz., the general impatience and haste 
which urges the student, no less than society in gen- 
eral, toward the future. We forget the necessary 
chronology of intellectual progress. The expansion 
of the country, and the immense demand for edu- 
cated, or partially educated labor, tempts the student 
to the course which is the shortest and swiftest. Long- 
before he graduates he is enticed by lucrative and 
honorable offers, and is it strange that he should not 
always judge wisely? He begins his profession a year 
or two before he is graduated, that he may so much 
the sooner leap over the intervening space between 
himself and active life. 

A still more important and essential difficulty in 
realizing the full idea of the College is found in the 
lack of means. No considerable literary or scientific 
community can be created without books, and instru- 



29 

mentS; and cabinets ; and no constant^ strong and 
pervading literary or scientific interest can be excited 
without such a community. 

It might be unwise, it certainly would be ungrate- 
ful, to indicate the destitution under which we have 
labored : yet who that remembers the College Li- 
brary as it existed a few years since, can be insens- 
ible to the plentiful lack of all the apparatus needed 
for modern scholarship ? We cannot be too grateful 
to those benefactors among the living, as well as of 
the dead, whose generosity has supplied the most 
glaring deficiences, and given a direction to the gifts 
of the liberal, which we hope may be a-bundantly 
followed. The College has never received from a 
single source the ample donations with which some 
favored institutions have been endowed. Yet, not to 
mention those yet with us, let us remember with honor 
the names of Dartmouth, of Thornton, of Wentworth, 
of Phillips, of Evans, of Hall, of Reed, of Appleton, 
of Shattuck, of Chandler — familiar, n^any of them, 
in the annals of charity and public spirit. Nor let us 
forget the many on whose liberality the College has 
ever relied, and not in vain. It is difficult to com- 
pare the commercial value of the broad streams bear- 
ing fleets of traflickers upon their bosom, with the 
silver rills which fertilize a thousand hill-sides and 
meadows. 

How far the College has attained all the objects for 
which it was founded ; how far it has been a force in 
the State ; how wisely it has mingled instruction 
with discipline ; how promptly her course of study 
has followed the ever-flying boundaries of knowledge ; 
how thorough, severe and generous has been her train- 



30 

ing ; with what wisdom and skill she has guided her 
children ; whether her sons have done honor to them- 
selves and to her, w^e shall leave others to determine. 
Yet if in this northern region there is spread a wider 
refinement, a gentler spirit, a deeper love and honor 
of literature, of art, of liberty, of law ; if there be 
diffused a more adequate idea of the nobler purposes 
of life ; if in other States throughout the Confederacy, 
if in other lands towards the rising and the setting 
sun, there be found the eloquent orator ; the faithful 
minister ; the missionary, learned, zealous and self-de- 
nying ; the physician, cunning to discern the secrets 
of life ; the statesman, looking through the darkness 
of coming years, conquering difficulties afar off, de- 
vising safe remedies for most threatening evils; if, 
gratefully receiving among her officers the sons of 
other colleges, older and younger than herself, she has 
paid the debt to learning by contributing of her alum- 
ni to meet the similar wants of ancient universities at 
home, and new schools abroad ; if the torches kind- 
led at yonder altars have been borne " even and high" 
towards all regions, signals everywhere of encourage- 
ment and joy ; — if names of the illustrious, memora- 
ble from achievements in letters, in arts, in life, al- 
ready chronicled in history, part and parcel hence- 
forth forever of the fame of the land, — if such names 
are found on her rolls, early or late, — if these eviden- 
ces are patent to the world, may we not believe that 
its founders and guardians, who nourished it by their 
prayers and staked so much upon its defence, w^ould 
still (were such things permitted,) look down upon it 
with satisfaction, and may we not be pardoned if we 
cling to it with love and devotion ? Mistakes there 



31 

may have been, too little encouragement to the dili- 
gent, too little stimulus to the sluggish, now too 
much haste and then too little, yet in soundness of 
principle and sureness of result, could we reasonably 
have expected more ? 

I have referred to differences in studies at diJBferent 
periods. Yet there is an advancement not covered by 
a knowledge of books, — not in attainment merely, 
but in the spirit of a scholar, — the inward life, the 
indescribable fervor, the inimitable beauty, the holy 
zeal, the expanse of mind, the magnanimity of soul ; — 
of those elements of a perfect education we cannot 
so well speak, nor compare the successive generations 
of students. Yet if the past is a fair prophet of the 
future, — if the next half century shall produce an- 
other Appleton, another Marsh, another Woodbury, 
another Wilde, another Webster, may we not be satis- 
fied? 

. These, Gentlemen of the Alumni, are some of the 
considerations, lying but too evidently on the surface, 
ordered with too little care, which have suggested 
themselves as not entirely unfit to the occasion, while 
we stand with a sober and tempered spirit to gather 
up» the lessons of the past, to gird ourselves anew for 
the future. Through the favor of heaven, the College 
enjoys at least a fair degree of prosperity. You find 
her not in the heat and uncertainties of conflict, but 
in the bea,uty and affluence of peace ; not folding her 
robes about her to fall, but resting with serene confi- 
dence on the affection and generosity of her sons ; 
not, indeed, "winning her easy way" from one scene 
of enjoyment to another, yet her path beset by no 



32 

unusual and insuperable obstacles. What she shall be 
must depend largely upon those whose early culture 
she has directed, and in whose fame and prosperity 
she may claim some little share. 

May she yet have resources sufficient for every rea- 
sonable want ; instruments wrought with cunning art 
for the most subtle or far-reaching operation of sci- 
ence; libraries ample for the student of widest research, 
ever enlarging with wise foresight, sheltered in apart- 
ments whose very air shall inspire the philosopher, 
the historian, the poet, and so protected that the first 
fire which our audacity is tempting shall not lay in 
ashes all our wealth. May she have some building, at 
least one, be it Chapel, or Hall, or Library, or all com- 
bined, of noble architecture, that we may look on with 
love and pride, whose image may rise first in the 
memory when her name is pronounced by her distant 
sons, and which may bind still closer together the 
increasing generation of her children, by offering a 
common subject of thought, a common bond of asso- 
ciation. May every liberal art find increasing protec- 
tion under the shadow of her wings. Above all, may 
she abound in that wisdom which ennobleth institu- 
tions no less than individual men, and more perfectly 
fulfil her first design of increasing sound learning, 
and diffusing pure religion. In the language of Thomas 
Fuller, " May her lamp never lack light for the oil, or 
oil for the light thereof May the foot of sacrilege, if 
once offering to enter the gates thereof, stumble and 
rise no more. The Lord bless the labors of all stu- 
dents therein, that they may tend and end at his 
glory, their own salvation, the profit and honor of- the 
church and commonwealth." With such a spirit, re- 



33 

spectful of the counsels of age and ardent with the 
resolution of youth; sustained by filial hands that 
will never forget nor forsake, and planting her foot- 
steps upon eternal truth, will she go on to fulfil her 
mission. 

Dum juga montis aper, fluvios dum piscis amabit, 
Dumque thymo pascentur apes, dum rore cicadas ; 
Semper honor, nomenque tuum, landesque manebunt. 



SUPPLEMENTARY. 



In accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, the Associa- 
tion of the Alumni of Dartmouth College met in the Chapel, on 
Wednesday, the 25th of July, 1855, and elected the officers of the 
Association for the current year, as follows : 
Joel Parker, i.l. d., President. 

Daniel Blaisdell, esq., ^ 

Eev. Silas Aiken, d. d., -rr- o -j * 

RuFUs Choate, ll. d., I 

Reuben D. Mussey, ll. d., J 

Prof. E. D, Sanborn, Secretary. 

Prof. John S. Woodman, Treasurer. 

Prof. Ira Young, 

Ira Perley, ll. d., 

Albert Smith, m. i>, 

Daniel Clark, esq., )■ Curators. 

John P. Healey, esq.. 

Prof. Edward A. Lawrence, 

Rev. Newton E. Marble, 

Peter T. Washburn, Jr., esq., Chief Marshal. 

The Secretary proceeded to read the names of those of the Alumni 
who had deceased within the past year, and hrief remarks upon their 
lives and characters were made by classmates and friends, until the 
hour appointed for the Oration. 

After the Oration a Poem was delivered by Parh Benjamin, Esq., 
of New- York, and an Oration by Wendell Phillips, Esq., of Bos- 
ton, before the Literary Societies of the College. 

The Association then proceeded to the further celebration of its 
Anniversary. No arrangements were made in contemplation of a 
publication, but it has been supposed that the subsequent transactions 
may prove, to those interested in the welfare of the College, an ac- 



36 

ceptable Appendix to the Oration ; and an attempt has been made to 
collect the disjecta memhra with such success as warrants the belief 
that those who were present will recognize the general truthfulness, 
if not the precise accuracy, of the following Report of what transpir- 
ed, 

SUPER CGENAM. 

The President of the Association : 

' Gentlemen, — The duty which falls upon my shoulders upon the 
present occasion seems just now to be of rather an onerous character. 
It is quite an easy matter, as you have perceived to-day, to make an 
excellent oration, or to deliver a racy poem ; but to preside at the 
supplement to a dinner-table, after such an intellectual treat, is 
another affair altogether. I feel somewhat like the good deacon who 
maintained that the minister's salary of some two hundred and fifty 
dollars was quite enough, because it was so easy to preach ; and who 
thereupon was invited by the clergyman to occupy the pulpit. You 
may recollect that when he came to the sermonizing, after three or 
four ineffectual attempts to get hold of the thread of a discourse, he 
leaned over the desk in despair, and said to the audience : '^ My 
friends, if any of you think preaching is such a very easy matter, I 
wish you would just come up here and try it for yourselves.'' 

If any one of you, my friends, thinks that presiding over the after 
dinner part of the performances at this Celebration is such an easy 
affair, I shall be pleased to have him come up here and try his hand 
at it. — As no one speaks, I suppose I must proceed to supply the 
pulpit as well as I may. 

You are aware that this is the first public celebration of the Alumni 
of Dartmouth College. Something more than a quarter of a century 
since I had some agency in the formation of an association, which, 
after vainly endeavoring for three or four years to have a celebration 
in connection with a Commencement, expired without accomplishing 
the object for which it was instituted. 

It has not been I think from any want of fraternal feeling on the 
part of the Graduates of this College, nor from any lack of interest 
in their Alma Mater, that the Institution has been somewhat behind 
others of a like character in the efficient organization of an associa- 
tion like the present ; but one prominent cause has been the wide dis- 
persion of the Alumni of this College, which in all classes follows im- 
mediately upon graduation, and to the lack of facilities until recently 
for a reunion in the classic halls of their earlier days. There is prob- 



37 

ably no collegiate institution which has done more than Dartmouth to 
send the schoolmaster abroad. It is substantially, if not literally, the 
fact, that wherever there has been a patch of the country of sufficient 
ability to support a district school, there, or in the vicinity of that 
place, has been found a graduate of Dartmouth. Some of them have 
attained to the dignity of schoolmasters in other similar institutions. 
Commerce, manufactures, and agriculture throughout the Union have 
had the benefit of their labor. Some have acquired renown in the halls 
of legislation. As members of the learned professions, they have 
been scattered broad cast over the land. Some fill professional chairs 
in Medical Colleges. Others are dispensing justice from the bench. 
And of those who, with a self-sacrificing spirit, have taken their lives 
in their hands in order to carry the Grospel to the uttermost parts of 
the earth, Dartmouth has contributed her full share. It is no vain 
boasting in behalf of our Alma Mater, to say that wherever her sons 
have gone, the boundaries of science have been enlarged, truth and 
justice have been enforced, and the world has been made better be- 
cause they have lived in it. 

The difficulties which have interposed themselves in the way of a 
family gathering under the maternal roof-tree, have been partially 
overcome. The railways which intersect the country, whatever mis- 
chiefs they may have occasioned, have among their merits that of 
furnishing facilities for such an assemblage ; and through their aid we 
have come up here at this time, under a constitution which declares 
that the object of the Association "shall be to unite in such meetings, 
exercises, and other measures as shall be appropriate to the Alumni 
of a literary institution, and as shall tend to strengthen the bonds 
which bind us to each other and to our common Alma Mater." 

The question how the first part of this constitutional obligation is 
to be performed, has been readily answered. We have adopted the ap- 
proved mode. We have had our joyous greetings and pleasant rem- 
iniscences. We have listened to a Discourse of marked ability and 
eloquence, pronounced at our request and for our edification ; which 
is undoubtedly a proper measure for the Alumni of a literary institu- 
tion. And we have just united in an exercise which is universally 
admitted to be one of the true modes of promoting good-fellowship. 
You all know the old proverb respecting the most direct way to a 
man^s heart. A good dinner makes us wondrous kind. Judging 
from what I have observed around me, you are all just at this time 
most affectionately disposed towards each other. So far, very well. 



38 

But the mode in wtich the other part of our constitutional obligation 
is to be complied with ; the means which shall be taken, now and here, 
to strengthen the bonds which bind us to our common Alma Mater, do 
not appear quite so clearly. The questions, what does our good Mother 
desire of us? what can we do for her? and how increase our aifection 
for her ? are not as readily answered. In order to solve the first of 
these questions, we should consult her. How shall we get from the 
honored Lady some expression of her wishes ? I have in my eye a 
gentleman who is her Chief Steward, and who doubtless could give 
us the information, if a way could be devised of extracting it from 
him. But how is this to be done ? If we were assembled under 
old fashioned usages, with wine upon the board, I should have no 
difficulty. It would only be to call upon you to fill your glasses, and 
with a bumper to Alma Mater, we should have him on his feet forth- 
with. He would, by all the laws in such cases heretofore made and 
provided, be bound to respond to it. But our wise Mother furnishes 
no such means of acquiring information. She only points to '' the old 
oaken bucket that hangs in the well.'^ 

In this " pursuit of knowledge under difficulties," it occurs to me 
that we are at this time very like children, and may act in that char- 
acter. The little folks march and counter-march, hold meetings, have 
their parties, with toast and tea, and all kinds of imitations of their 
seniors, but when appealed to respecting the reality of the thing, they 
admit that it is only " make believe,'^ Suppose we proceed upon 
that basis, try the virtue of ^'make believe," and see what will come 
of it. 

Please fill your glasses with the pure element. Let us have a bum- 
per to, — Our Alma-Mater^ and her wortliy President. 

I beg leave. Gentlemen, to introduce the Reverend Dr. Lord. 

President Lord : Mr. President, — You call upon me to represent 
the wishes of Dartmouth, at this festive gathering of her sons. Sir, 
she thinks of nothing, just now, but to please them. She has but 
one wish to-day ] — that they may have a merry meeting, and go in 
together, one and all, for a good time. 

Sir, I have but a doubtful right to say a word on this occasion, be- 
yond what is merely ex officio ; for I am not a son of the venerable 
Mother whose children have come up to do her honor. But I may 
claim the privilege of adoption, and of a child kept at home, in ex- 
pressing to this goodly company the feelings of a brother's heart. 
In truth, I know no difference between your mother and my own, or 
her children and my own brethren; and I love them, not as in duty 
bound, but as I cannot help, with all the affection of a natural kins- 



39 

man. It is spontaneous, and I give it free utterance in an honest 
and hearty welcome. 

I may also claim a yet higher right to speak, for many greet me 
here, the more generously because, on my part, the relationship has 
been so poorly earned, as children. I have a double joy in these fes- 
tivities, and in giving a double welcome to this glowing brotherhood. 
I welcome all and several to this old homestead, to these old halls 
and haunts, and I go in with them for a warm meeting, and a good 
time. Sir, we shall have it. I see it in your eye. I saw it when, with 
your usual forecast and benevolence, you went out, just now, to shore 
all up safe below. 

But you do not mean that this good time shall pass away and be 
forgotten. You mean to live hereafter. You are looking out for 
better times to come. You ask me to show cause why Dartmouth 
should continue to have the favor of her sons ? My answer is a 
short one, — because Dartmouth is in her sons. There is no Dart- 
mouth without her sons. They have made her what she is, and they 
constitute good and sufficient reasons why she should be sustained, 
and become a yet more prolific and propitious mother. You could 
not expect me to discuss these reasons. Why, Sir, there are three 
thousand of them — numerus integer — and of that entire number two 
thousand supersunt adhuc. A tithe of that surviving number repre- 
sent here, this day, the strong heads and warm hearts of the whole 
living fraternity. Could I discuss even them ? It would be out of 
taste. They would not thank me. They will speak for themselves. 

But I will just take it upon me to say what Dartmouth is : that is, 
what her sons have made her, and what I trust she will be as long as 
she has sons to be called by her name. What have they made her ? 

Sir, God makes all things. But the ideas, the principles, that he, 
in his good providence, causes to pervade a learned institution, and by 
which it has a character, belong to the men whom it educates. It takes 
its impress from them. And, in my judgment, the sons of Dart- 
mouth have made her, and she accordingly stands out this day : 

1. A College which knows no party in the State ; but is of and for 
the State, and for the whole of it : 

2. A College which knows no denomination of the Church ; but is 
of and for the whole of it : 

3. A College which knows no order in ethics, no father in theol- 
ogy, no hierophant in philosophy, and acknowledges but one Master, 
who is in heaven : 

4. A College which stands between Church and State as a mediator, 
not to unite them, not to constitute an ambitious and destructive 
Church-and-State-power ; but to compose and harmonize these respec- 
tive bodies in their distinct and independent but coordinate spheres, 
for the ends of righteousness and peace, and, by consequence, for the 
common good. 

Mr. President, let Dartmouth and her sons be true to these princi- 
ples, and she will have, if not the present favor of the State, or 



40 

Church, yet, what is of more account, and what will make her, in 
the long run, more subservient to the common good, the favor of 
Him who ruleth over all. 

The President : — It is now quite a number of years, — (as my wife 
is not present to object, perhaps I may as well be frank, and say that 
it is more than forty years) since my name was enrolled among — of 
course among — the diligent students of the College. At that time 
the father of the Orator of the Association was one of the Tutors. 
As an instructor at that time, as an occupant of the sacred desk af- 
terwards, and subsequently as the presiding officer of the College, he 
was unsurpassed. But it is not for me, upon this occasion, to pro- 
nounce his eulogy. It was my good fortune to be for one term under 
his instruction ; and if my lessons in the recitation room did not tell 
as well as those of some others, (to use the language which at a for- 
mer meeting to-day has, with much less reason, been applied to a 
most distinguished son of Dartmouth,) I will not hold him responsi- 
ble. In fact, I must admit that I was somewhat stupid at that time, 
for it certainly did not then occur to me that nearly half a century 
afterwards I should come up here to listen to instruction from a son 
of my most respected Tutor. And yet there is perhaps some excuse 
for me ; for whatever you may now think, after the very interesting 
discourse to which you have listened to-day, I can assure you. Gen- 
tlemen, that the Orator was not thought much of fifty years since. 
And I don't propose to say much of him now, because, as you are 
aware, he is so well able to speak for himself. I merely give you, 
The Orator of the Day. 

Prof. Brown, after thanking the President and Alumni for their 
generous reception of an address too hastily prepared, excused him- 
self in a few words from intruding farther upon the attention of the 
Association, and proposed as a sentiment — 

Our AIma-3Iater: Salve j magna jpar ens friigurtij * * * 
Magna virum. 

The President : — You are aware. Gentlemen, that there is in almost 
every community a venerable personage who is regarded as a kind of 
oracle in all matters relating to the weather and the crops, and re- 
specting every singular and astonishing event. He is regularly ap- 
pealed to upon every extraordinary occasion, but it is always expected 
of him that his memory shall not be able to recall any thing so mar- 
vellous in that line as the incident which has just happened. I regret 
that it is not in my power to make you acquainted with that renowned 



41 

personage, *Hlie oldest inliabitant ;" but I can do mucli better than 
that ; I can introduce to your notice one with whom you are already 
well acquainted; and one who is and has always been an oracle in re- 
lation to matters of much more importance than these ordinary marvels ; 
one who has probably done more for the collegiate education of the 
elder half of us than any other man now living. I see you are at 
no loss to perceive where the index points, and you will heartily re- 
spond to, — Long life and health to our venerahle friend and instruct- 
or, Rev. Dr. Shurtleff. 

Dr. Shurtleff : Mr. President, — The unexpectedness of your call 
conspires with this delightful occasion to awaken emotions which I 
have no words to express. I discover so many cheerful faces here, 
which were once familiar in the halls of recitation, that I almost feel 
the need of a check, lest I should inadvertently call for an abstract of 
the last lesson. 

I am doubtless acquainted with more of the Alumni of Dartmouth 
than any other man living, and to me they are all peculiar people ', 
and I hesitate not to express the gratifying opinion, that no Col- 
lege in our land has produced a greater proportion, to say the least, 
of eminent and useful men than my own venerable Alma Mater. 
And while riding at anchor in the wane of life, during the last seven- 
teen years, I have seemed repeatedly to live over again the thirty- 
eight years I spent in her service. In imagination I have seen her 
beloved sons in classes before me, and have followed them in their 
various ways from State to State, from continent to continent, and 
from kingdom to kingdom — accounting myself successful in all their 
prosperity, and happy in their happiness. 

But, out of regard to your time and my own weakness, I will add 
only an expression of my fervent desire and prayer, that we and all 
the surviving Alumni of this cherished Institution may, through di- 
vine grace, be prepared to meet in a brighter world, where friends 
will part no more. 

The President : — It will be recollected that the reading of the list of 
deceased members was suspended this morning, by a call for the 
formation of the procession. Although this is not the most appro- 
priate time for such reminiscences, it seems expedient that this duty 
should not be left unfinished. Classmates and friends of the deceased 
will please favor us with memorials. 

The Secretary/ proceeded with the roll. 

The President : — I understand that letters have been written with- 
in a few days to divers gentlemen, especially requesting them to give 
us the benefit of their presence at these festivities, and that answers 
have been received from several who are unable to be here. We 
will remember — " Our absent Friends." 



42 

Mr. Duncan, who has the letters in his possession, will please an- 
swer in their behalf. 

It is suggested to me that just at this time Mr. Duncan himself 
is among " our absent friends." I am not aware of any process by 
which I can enforce his attendance. 

Speaking of process reminds me, — Salmon P. Chase ! Hearken 
to an indictment found against you by the grand inquest for the body 
of this Association. The jurors for the Association of the Alumni 
of Dartmouth College on their honor present, that you, Salmon P= 
Chase, were, on the day of , 1854, duly elected and commis- 
sioned to deliver an oration before the Association upon the pres- 
ent Anniversary — and the jurors aforesaid do further present, that 
you have failed and neglected so to do ', in evil example to others in 
like case to offend, contrary to the form of the statutes in such case made 
and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the Association. 
What say you. Are you guilty of the offence with which you here 
stand charged, or not guilty ? 

JECon. S. P. Chase : Mr. President, — I do not know exactly by 
what authority this indictment is preferred against me ; and perhaps 
I ought to plead to the jurisdiction of the Court in which I am ar- 
raigned. But I will not do that. I might stand mute, and refuse 
to plead at all ; but then I too well know to what peine fort et dur I 
should expose myself, to be willing to risk its infliction. 

As I have a complete defence upon the merits, however, I will nei- 
ther except to the jurisdiction, nor, by silence, incur the charge of 
contumacy. 

It was with no little regret that I surrendered the expectation of 
addressing this ancient and honorable Society to-day. I fully in- 
tended to do so. I had appropriated to the duty of preparation a 
time altogether sufficient. I had indeed entered upon the perform- 
ance of that duty, but just then I was summoned to the discharge 
of a professional obligation which could not be postponed, and which 
occupied the whole time set apart for the preparation of an address 
for this occasion. It seemed to me, therefore, that I was only doing 
what became a loyal son of Dartmouth, and a faithful member of our 
fraternity, to announce at once to the proper authorities that it would 
be impossible for me to fulfil my engagement, in order that some 
other gentleman might be called upon in time for the performance of 
the duty which I could not discharge. 

But, sir, I do not rest content with this vindication of myself. I 
not only claim a verdict of acquittal, but a vote of thanks. My com- 
pelled failure to address you really assumes the character of positive 
merit. It has been the means of procuring for us all the pleasure of 
listening to the extremely interesting and eloquent address, which we 



43 

have heard from my able and accomplished friend, who sits near me 
(Professor Brown). If I had been, in fact, a delinquent, you could 
easily pardon a delinquency which has been the occasion of such a 
gratification. 

And now perhaps I ought to take my seat, but as the impulse is 
upon me I will say a few words, suggested by what has fallen from 
you about the wide dispersion of the sons of Dartmouth. 

As you spoke I could not help thinking of the various circumstan- 
ces under which I have met her children in the course of my own life. 

It was under the charge of my own elder brother, a son of Dart- 
mouth, that I, a mere boy, first sought the distant West — now no 
longer the West, but the centre of the Republic. There, with the 
venerable Bishop of Ohio, another son of Dartmouth, I found my 
first western home. 

There, too, I remember to have met another of the children of our 
Alma Mater. He was a young man, of fine intellect and rich at- 
tainments, who had for a brief period resided in the commercial me- 
tropolis of Ohio, with a view to the practice of an honorable profes- 
sion, in which he afterwards rose to deserved renown. He had be- 
come discontented or discouraged, I don't know which, and was on 
his return to New-England. Never before in his life, I believe ■ — 
never since, certainly, was he known to retreat. But then he was 
certainly upon the back track. What the West lost, however, New- 
England gained. I need not give you his history. Thou, Mr. Pres- 
ident, art the man. 

Years afterward, when, myself a youthful graduate, I sought, by 
teaching, the means of a professional education, another son of Dart- 
mouth, occupying a post in the Senate of the United States, cheered 
me by sympathy and aided me by counsel. 

A little later, when returning to the West, I was obliged to un- 
dergo a brief probation in a lawyer's office, before I could enter upon 
the practice of the law. I found a kind welcome to office and library, 
from a gentleman whose useful and honorable life reflects distinction 
upon this venerable Institution whose alumnus he is. I am glad to 
see him among us to-day. He is not quite royal, for he may do 
wrong. But in name and nature he is always Wright. 

While engaged in the practice of my profession, I could not be in- 
different to the fortunes of those who had with me received the ben- 
ediction of our Alma Mater, when from her peaceful shades we went 
forth into the world. The universal and inevitable law of dispersion 
was upon us. Almost every where in the Union were members of 
our class. One was a lawyer in New-Orleans ; one a physician in 
Massachusetts ; another was a minister of the gospel on the Ohio. 
Some had gone beyond the limits of the Union. One was Secretary 
of the State of Texas at the period of annexation ; another, in the 
far distant islands of the Pacific, was engaged in the great work of 
making known to the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ. 

At a still later period it was my fortune to be chosen to represent 



44 

the Empire State of the West in the Senate of the Union. There, 
again, I met the sons of Dartmouth. The regretted death of one of 
them (Mr. Norris) has been announced to-daj. Of the other how 
shall I speak ? How shall I describe the lofty grandeur of his in- 
tellect, the simple dignity of his manners, the kindness of his spirit ? 
I will not attempt to do at all, what I must needs do so inadequately 
and unworthily. Dartmouth — New-Hampshire — the Union, has had 
but one Webster, and can have no other. 

Thus, Mr. President, every where are our brethren found. They 
do their part in the world, and traly the world is the better for their 
doing it. Every heart here will, I am sure, echo the aspiration of 
my own, God bless them, wherever they may be ! 

The President : — Hearken to the verdict of the jury, as it is duly 
recorded. The jury find the said Salmon P. Chase is guilty in man- 
ner and form, but in consideration of the extenuating circumstances 
to which he has referred, recommend him to mercy. And thereupon, 
having the advice of counsel, a full and free pardon is extended to 
him. 

The remarks of the gentleman who has just received his pardon 
suggests a call upon — The Class of 1811. The biggest class, of its 
size, — in its own opinion, — ichich had then graduated.'^ It has still 
some claim to regard, inasmuch as it numbers among its members 
one " always Wright^ Judge Wright, of Ohio, Gentlemen. 

Judge Wright : — It seems hardly justice to the absent and the de- 
parted, to call on rtie, now, to represent the class of 1811 — not only 
unused to this service, but now, travel-soiled, and very tired. For 
let me say. Sir, the class of 1811 is not to be trifled with — not at all 
to be spoken of slightly. It has made its mark in the annals of 
Dartmouth ; aye, sir, and in other places of the earth. 

Were there time it would be grateful to me, and perhaps useful to 
us all, to recall some of its names, and the course of their lives ; to 
go back almost half a century to our joyous days here, and from that 
stand look forward into the future, — now become the past. 

There was Daniel Poor, the Christian Missionary, so amiable and 
so earnest ; unsurpassed in skill as a teacher of the heathen ; unlim- 
ited in devotion to his Saviour ; his bones reposing now among the 
spicy groves of Ceylon. 

Nathaniel II. Carter, distinguished here for his exquisite classical 
taste, and afterwards, far and wide, as an elegant leader in the period- 
ical literature of the time ; especially by his graphic sketches of for- 

* The Class of 1811 numbered scvcnty-fivc. Owing to various untoward circumstances, but 
fifty-three received their degrees in course. One graduated at Middlebury the same year. 
Two received their degrees with the Class of 1812. The honorary degree of A. M. was con- 
ferred upon another in 1822. 



45 

eign travel. " He touched nothing which he did not adorn." He 
has long since gone to his rest, in a foreign land. 

There was Lemuel H. Arnold, who held, with good success, the 
helm of Government in that sister State, which once seemed so much 
to need a hand of extra firmness and power. 

William Cogsioell, also, has gone ; so useful and so faithful as a 
Christian Teacher, and who did so much, to strengthen the ties of 
men to their kindred. 

Ether Shepley, distinguished as a statesman in the Senate of the 
Union, and still more as a jurist at the head of the Judiciary of 
Maine ; a lawyer who blends the highest legal talent and learning, 
with the conscientiousness of a devoted Christian, still remains 
among us. 

There was Amos Kendall, since Post-Master General; an ofl&ce 
the most complex and harassing of all the departments of public ser- 
vice. To the deep disgrace of our country be it said, all our public 
men, worthy and unworthy, without distinction, are grossly abused, 
vilified, vituperated ; and he shared the common lot. But now, 
when the frenzy of the moment has passed away, who doubts that 
Amos Kendall filled that office with distinguished ability and in- 
tegrity. 

Then there was another, not to be named in this presence, and yet 
not by any means to be omitted ; a stripling in the class, not in mind 
but in body — for he was very young — long Chief Justice of this 
our State, where not only his own people, but the whole legal pro- 
fession throughout the land, will ever remember him with deference 
and gratitude ; now a distinguished Professor in the celebrated Law 
School at Cambridge ; a man who can give honor to any station, and 
receive honor from none. 

But I must stop — I might speak of others ; of the whole class. 
But I am trespassing. I do no justice even to these. May I ask, 
Sir, to hear from yourself in relation to this class of 1811 ? 

The President : — I always do every thing which I may by deputy. 
Brother Andrews is commissioned to respond to this call. 

A. Andrews, Esq. : Mr. President, — Little did I think when I en- 
tered this hall that so humble an individual as myself would be called 
upon as your deputy to speak for the class of 181 L I feel myself 
unable to do justice to the merits of a class which contained so many 
members who have distinguished themselves in the various learned 
professions and other employments of life. They need no praise from 
me, and I shall not attempt to bestow it. But were I competent to 
the task I might, for a moment, recall to your mind other individuals 
of our class, who have passed away from earth, whose names are dear 
to our hearts. 

I would name the elder Goodwin, who, having just opened an 
office in South Berwick, Me., his native town, for the practice of law, 



46 

was suddenly called from his earthly toils and from friends who must 
have entertained high hopes of his usefulness and success. He was 
a young man of promising talents, winning address, and unblemished 
character. 

The next name I would bring to your notice is that of Woodbury. 
He had read law, and commenced practice in Portsmouth, N. H. 
But afterwards he studied divinity, and settled in the gospel ministry 
in North Yarmouth, Me., in 1817. He died at Groton, Mass., in 
1819. Mr. Woodbury was a gentleman of high moral worth, a good 
scholar, and an amiable man. 

Other names crowd upon my memory, but I forbear. A word re- 
specting some of those who have already been mentioned. 

Carter was decidedly, in my humble opinion, the best classical 
scholar in the class. He devoted most of his life to literary pursuits, 
and his writings, both in poetry and prose, were highly creditable to 
himself and an honor to the class. He was courteous in his man- 
ners, upright in his morals, and social in his feelings. 

Of Poor I have already spoken to-day, when his decease was an- 
nounced at the meeting in the Chapel. In early college life he came 
to the determination to devote his whole life as a missionary in India. 
He has accomplished the task he so ardently desired. Mr. Poor was 
a persevering scholar, a philanthropist, and a Christian, and in his 
manners kind and obliging to all. 

Gogsioell knew more of the Class than any other man. He was 
an industrious man, performing loell whatever he attempted, in less 
time than ordinary men. He was the author of several works : — I 
mention but one — a little pamphlet which we esteem very highly, 
because it contains a Sketch of the Life of each member of our Class. 

And now, Mr. President, as I am about to resign my delegated 
trust to your hands, allow me to advise you, the next time you at- 
tempt to speak by deputy to so respectable an audience as the one 
over which you now preside, to be more discreet in your choice. 

The President : — You perceive, gentlemen, that I was not mistaken 
respecting the opinion which the class of 1811 entertained of itself. 
I give you next — Benjamin's Mess. Unlike Ms namesake of ancient 
times, the Poet has given, instead of receiving, a douhle portion of 
good cheer. We have had from him to-day Poetry and Truth. 

I understand that the Kev. Dr. Henry, of New- York, is responsi- 
ble for Mr. Benjamin, who it appears is not present. 

Rev. Dr. Henry : Mr. President, — You have taken me by surprise. 
I did not expect to be called up at all, still less to be called on to answer 
for our missing Poet. For I am not a poet, neither am I our poet's 
keeper. I declare to you I have not put him out of the way, as Cain 
did Abel; and I resent the imputation your call on me implies. I 
have not the least doubt but that he is safe and well somewhere. 



47 

Though as to the rest, I am unable to conceive what claim you can 
have on him, or on me, if I were answerable for him ; since you your- 
self admit that he has given us his whole ^' Benjamin's mess/' and 
gone dinnerless away himself. Be this as it may, I shall decline an- 
swering for him. 

[ The President : — " You will please, then, to speak on your own 
behalf.''] 

"Well, Sir, since I am unrighteously called up, though unprepared 
with, any thing to say, and utterly incapable of continuing the strain 
of sparkling wit and humor, which you — witty yourself, like Falstaff, 
and the cause of wit in others — have elicited for the mirth and 
joyousness of this festive hour ; yet I will try to speak an earnest 
word or two out of the deep feeling which this occasion has awakened. 

I have not been here since, fifteen years ago, I had the honor to 
deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration : and I have never seen so many 
of the sons of Dartmouth assembled together before. Sons of Dart- 
mouth ! — brethren all, — children of the same benignant Mother ! 
Glorious old Mother of our minds ! In eighty-four years she has 
brought forth nearly three thousand sons ! That is the number, I be- 
lieve, which the venerable President has just told us stands upon the 
catalogue as the "numerus integer/' the whole number of the Alum- 
ni ; of which I forget exactly how many he said (in academic catalog- 
ical phrase) "q^ui supersunt adhuc," and I will thank him to mention 
it again. 

[_President Lord, in reply : — " Nearly two thousand qui supersunt 
adhuc.''2 

. Three thousand sons ! of whom nearly two thousand are yet alive I 
Wonderful old Mother ! And she is as fruitfully vigorous as ever ; 
as capable of bringing forth children, and more so ; and she means, 
I don't doubt, to go on bringing forth thousands more of children, 
every eighty-four years to come, to the end of time. 

We have heard to-day. Sir, how the sons of Dartmouth are to be 
found every where in the world, doing honor to their Alma Mater and 
to themselves in the service of God, of their country, and of mankind. 
Our brother from Ohio, [Senator Chase] of whom his Alma Mater 
and his brethren may well be proud, and who has made his adopted 
State and all Free States proud of him, has given us an amusing 
account, in his exquisite way, of his experiences in encountering 
the uhiquitarian sons of Dartmouth. I listened with pleasure 
and with pride ; and I may be pardoned, on classic ground, for recit- 
ing the classic verse his account called to my mind — words which 
our Alma Mater has a better right to utter than piiLS jEneas had : 

" Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris V 

Wherever you go, by sea or by land, 

Are the sons of Dartmouth, a glorious band. 



48 

Not exactly a literal rendering, perhaps, but I am sure you will 
think it a strictly true one. 

Little, Sir, as I feel myself to have done to make my Alma Mater 
proud of me, I am proud to be reckoned among her sons. I am proud 
of my brethren. I am proud, and we all have reason to be proud, of 
our Mother. And she has, in my judgment, a special title to be held 
in honor by all lovers of sound culture throughout the land. Amidst 
all the fluctuations of public opinion, and the demands of the spirit 
of the age for practical studies, so called, she has faithfully adhered 
to the good old fashioned curriculum. She has understood that the 
special function of a college is to train and discipline the mind, 
rather than to impart pragmatically the greatest possible amount of 
mere knowledge. She has understood that it is just simply impossi- 
ble to find any course of studies so admirably, so perfectly adapted 
to the true nurture, the harmonious development, and the thorough 
discipline of the human faculties, and so to the preparation of a 
youth for all the subsequent acquisitions and subsequent achieve- 
ments of a man, in whatever sphere, as precisely the good old fash- 
ioned, thorough training in classical, mathematical, and logical studies. 
She has indeed admitted new studies; she has kept pace with the 
progress of science ; but she has not diminished aught of the old, 
rigid, wholesome discipline. For this, as one devoted to the cause of 
good learning and public instruction in the University where the best 
years of my life have been spent, I hold our Alma Mater entitled to 
a tribute of homage which I am glad to have this opportunity to pay. 

Before I sit down. Sir, there is one thing I would like to add. It 
is suggested by what our orator said of the College buildings here, 
and of the desirableness of something better, more suitable, more 
cultivating in architectual character. I heartily agree with what he 
so finely said. And, though it may not be quite proper for me to 
make the suggestion at this time, yet I cannot help observing that 
there is here a large and exceedingly valuable collection of books 
that ought to be better protected than they are in the edifice 
in which they are now sheltered ; and a fire-proof library build- 
ing — beautiful enough, in form, proportion and expression to satisfy 
the fine taste of our accomplished orator — would be a fine testimonial 
of the filial love of the sons of Dartmouth for their benignant Moth- 
er. I trust you will pardon me for uttering the suggestion here. 

Pardon me for having talked so long. When I complied with your 
kind request to speak on my own behalf, I only intended to try to 
express — what no words, however, can express — the boundless delight 
with which 1 find myself in the presence of so many of my brethren. 
Alumni of Dartmouth. I hope our next meeting will be a still 
more numerous assemblage. I wish we could see all the "suj^ersunt 
adhuc," the near two thousand live sons of Dartmouth, assembled to- 
gether at once ! You say, Sir, that we should have to find some 
other place than this crowded, extra-propped-up hall. Let us fill the 
College Green, then, and stretch a canvas covering over it all. It 
would be a glorious reiinion ! for there is no finer, purer, more spirit- 



49 

nal bond — and, outside the tender relations of the domestic circle, 

there is no stronger bond — than that which unites the lovers of good 

letters, and especially thos6 who have received the nurture of their 

minds at a common source. Let us, Sir, ever cherish this bond ; and 

wherever in the wide world the sons of Dartmouth meet, let it be with 

the heart-glad hand-grasp of true-hearted brothers. 

The President:— The Judiciary. We claim a present primary 

interest in that of New-Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont; and have ^ 

had some good investments in that of the United States, and that of 

Massachusetts and other States too numerous to mention. 

Chief Justice Redfield, of Vt., is bound to answer for the Judiciary. 
Chief Justice Redfield : Mr. President, — I shall not attempt to 
make a speech at this late hour, upon so dry and uninteresting a sub- 
ject as the Judiciary. Nobody, as a general thing, cares much about 
the Judiciary, any way. It is always, to most men, a dull topic of 
discourse ; and I have sometimes thought the least said or done upon 
that subject, the better. It is no doubt true, the world is governed 
too much, and as Chancellor Oxenstiern said to his son, '' with very 
little wisdom often.'' Still, there are a good many who seem to fancy 
that all the ills of life are curable mainly by legislative and judicial 
reforms. These are, for the most part, men who have more confi- 
dence in themselves than in others, or than others have in them; 
men who don't like right well to trust Providence even. 

It has thus happened that in this country, for the last ten years, 
almost all the States have been making more or less experiments 
upon their judicial systems, the tenure of judicial office, and the 
mode of appointment, till everything is brought into a state of pain- 
ful uncertainty upon this subject. It has seemed to me that we 
were, in regard to the Judiciary, in this country, getting very much 
into the condition of the physician's patient. He said the truth 
was, it had been doctored too much : it was, in reality, dying of the 
medicine, rather than the disease. 

I do not expect these judicial reformers to be equally frank in 
their confessions, but the condition of the public mind has been 
quite too much agitated, for the last few years, to be likely to cure 
the evils which no doubt exist, to some extent, in our judicial sys- 
tems ; and there seems more disposition among the politicians for re- 
forms there, than among the people. Some of our States have quite 
recently declined to make the Judiciary elective, by a popular vote, 
even for a term of years — preferring that the judges should hold office 
by executive appointment, during good behavior ; but in some States 
there is manifested a disposition to have the Judiciary more essen- 
tially popularized, as they call it. If by that they mean, to have the 
Judiciary a power in the State whose direction shall be shaped by 
the outward pressure — a mere stake, for demagogues and politicians 
to gamble over — let them beware. When that thing is once done it 
will be too late to retrace their steps ! Nulla vestigia retrorsum ! 



50 

And if any body, natural or artificial, has just cause to glory in 
the wisdom and independence of the Judiciary, it is Dartmouth Col- 
lege — our venerable, vigorous, and glorious Alma Mater. But for 
the Judiciary, and a Judiciary above the changing and hireling influ- 
ences of the day or the age, even the name of Dartmouth College 
would have been among the things that were. Ilia fuit, et ingens 
gloria, should already have concluded her brief history. She was 
not only the occasion, but the cause — the efficient cause — of es- 
tablishing, through the independence of the National Judiciary, a 
most conservative and indispensable principle in the law and the life 
of corporations ; and if in her turn she has contributed any thing to 
the credit of the judicial incumbents in the States named, we shall 
all rejoice. I could not, perhaps, be expected to say more upon this 
particular topic. 

The President : — The Orator of the United Literary Societies. Al- 
though we have not the honor of his name on the roll of our Alumni j 
we recognize it with pleasure as that of one of our most munificent 
henefactors. 

Mr. Phillips declined making a speech, but said he had heard of 
some tall specimens of the G-raduates of Dartmouth College, and 
expressed a wish to hear from — 

^^ The tallest Graduate — the tallest Member of Congress, and the 
tallest Man present.' ' 

This led to a general call for Mr. Wentioorth, of Illinois, who 
graduated in 1836. 

Mr. W. responded : — I consider myself fortunate in being present 
at a meeting of so many of the Alumni, and hope to be equally for- 
tunate on many similar occasions. My relatives are all in New- 
Hampshire. Whenever I visit them at this season, I always attend 
the Anniversary Exercises of my Alma Mater. But I am called out 
in consequence of my height. And what had Dartmouth College to 
do with that ? From the days of Eleazer Wheelock to the present 
time, when did she add an inch to any one's stature ? Perhaps gen- 
tlemen think all the Graduates stand upon their diplomas, and that 
my parchment was a little thicker than that of any other of the 
Graduates. Now, diplomas are very good things, but they will not 
do to stand upon in all cases. Yet I took one degree, and succeeded 
so well with it that I came back and got a second, and I succeeded 
a great deal better, and so all say who have tried the second degree. 

The Faculty of Dartmouth College never claimed any credit for 
my height, and did their whole duty to make me think it was of no 
importance. It seems but yesterday that President Lord recited 
certain stanzas from Dr. Watts, which referred to me so plainly, that, 
had it been in Congress, and had Congress been an orderly body, I 
should have called him to order, for a personal allusion. I am not 



51 

certain that I quote them correctly, but if I do not, President Lord 
will correct me ; 

" Were I so tall 's to reach the Pole, 
" Or grasp the ocean with my span, 
" I must be measured by my soul : 
" The mind 's the standard of the man." 

Now, by this standard, the eloquent orator of this afternoon, Mr. 
Phillips, is a taller man than I am ; and hereafter, when he and I 
are together, and the tallest man is complimented, I shall insist that 
he come forward and do the blushing. 

By this standard, as I look around these tables, I recognize a great 
many taller men than I am, and I wish to hear from them all. They 
need be under no embarrassment. They are at home now. If they 
make any mistakes, the Faculty are responsible. They came here 
like clay in the hands of the potter, and it is the fault of the Faculty 
if they have not been moulded into great men. If any were spoiled 
in making — and I have heard of such instances — here, among our 
own brethren, is the place to charge it upon the Faculty, and to give 
them such proof of it that they will confess, and perhaps try to rem- 
edy it. Here we are, brethren, back in the old ship-yard from which 
we were originally launched ; and if we have any defects, let us go 
into the old dock and lay ourselves up for repairs. Let us all speak 
with freedom, and if we speak amiss let us call upon President 
Lord to show cause for the Faculty's not being held responsible 
therefor. 

We have been hearing of the influential, the potential men ; the 
officers of the National Cabinet, the Supreme Judges, the Senators, 
the Foreign Ambassadors, the Presidents and Professors of Colleges, 
the Missionaries, &c. &c., that have been graduates of Dartmouth 
College. All these references aiford but additional cases where " dis- 
tance lends enchantment to the view." Here, at these tables, I in- 
sist, are the jewels of Dartmouth College. Don't look at me so 
earnestly, gentlemen ! You are the jewels ! Look at yourselves ! 
What have you done to add lustre to Dartmouth College ? 

Preceding speakers have alluded to the distinction acquired by 
members of their respective classes. My class has not been out in 
the world long enough yet to do justice to itself without crowding 
its predecessors. We are not one and twenty yet. But we have 
the Governor of one of the most thriving States of the Confederacy 
— Hon. James Wilson Grimes, of Iowa. And I notice that an- 
other of that class has just been nominated as a candidate for Lt. 
Governor of Vermont — Hon. Stoddard B. Colby. When we 
graduated, this would have been called extending our influence from 
one extremity of the Union to the other. But now, under our sys- 
tem of annexations and conquests, we can only say, from the centre 
to one extremity. 

One instance of the influence of Dartmouth College upon the 



52 

youtli of the West, and I must be excused. We have but little time 
here, and that should be divided among the largest number possible. 

It is said that a western man never speaks any where without an 
allusion to his town, and that his hearers may alwaj^s think them- 
selves fortunate if he does not take out his map and ask them to 
purchase a lot. I believe Chicago has the best system of free schools 
in che world, with her school-houses extended to the remotest bound- 
aries of the city, and open to all, without distinction of birth-place, 
color, or religion. Poor foreigners can step from the cars just bring- 
ing to them to our city, to any of our schools, and leave their chil- 
dren whilst they look up a house for a home. And all those schools, 
with their thousands of scholars, are under the immediate superin- 
tendance of J. C. Dore, Esq. And who will even undertake to 
calculate the immense advantages of his free instruction to the chil- 
dren of the poor foreigners and day laborers. Many of these chil- 
dren must receive from him such a stimulus for the paths of litera- 
ture and science, as will induce them to come to his Alma Mater, 
and travel the paths which he has traveled before them so much 
to their profit. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : I hope to meet you all again, and 
as many more as can possibly be prevailed upon to be present at our 
future Anniversaries ; and, whenever I do meet you, if I promptly 
respond to calls upon me to say a few words, it will be more from a 
desire to set a good example, than from a disposition to speak. For 
I really consider all the pleasure to be derived from these reunions 
to consist in the freedom and frankness with which we converse with 
each other ; making the scene like that in the parents' house, when 
the numerous and long absent children return to greet each other 
upon life, health and prosperity; all forgetful of the past but its 
pleasures and instructions ; all buoyant in the hopes of the future ; 
all with a little something to tell for the delight of the household. 

The President : — Tlie Reverend Clergy. In their orisons he all our 

sins remembered. 

Rev. Dr. Peters, of New-York, is requested to speak of the Clergy. 

Dr. A. Peters remarked that the scene to which he was here in- 
troduced was new and exciting, and yet it was old as his memory of 
College days. Since coming on to this ground, he said, I hardly 
know whether to consider myself old or young. I feel a kind of 
" Conflict of Ages " in my own person. It seems but a day since I 
was among the ^^ Hi Juvenes^' of the graduating class. On my ar- 
rival this morning I ran like a boy to find the old school-house, where 
I taught the village school during my '^ Senior vacation,'^ and the 
way I governed sixty-one boys and girls was a caution. I looked, as I 
said, where the house was, and it was not there ! It has been moved 
away bodily, and another of larger dimensions and more durable ma- 
terials erected in its place. 

Changes have come over the town, the people, the College. The 



53 

bridge across the river is burnt down, and Le Compt, who, we used 
to saj, was like a Jew, because he kept the Passover, is gone from 
the toll-gatherer's hut; and I am reminded that it is forty years, 
save one, since I left these grounds, new fledged for life and labor. 
A whole generation has passed away, — except the remnants of it who 
mingle their scattered ranks with grey heads, and often with trem- 
bling steps, among their youthful successors, — and, young as I feel, 
and vigorous for new enterprise, I find myself among the old men 
who have left their grand children at home, to come here and renew 
their interest and sympathies in the scenes of College life. 

I look for my teachers and only two remain [the venerable Profes- 
sors Shurtleff and Muzzey, who were present] to cheer us, of those 
other days, with their familiar faces ; and only one of my classmates 
is present, though full one half of the class of 1816 are still living to 
honor their Alma Mater in the walks of respectability and usefulness 
which they adorn. 

But, Mr. President, you have called on me to respond to a senti- 
ment of honor to the Clergy, which you have been pleased to announce. 
I would not be diverted from this topic by the clustering memories 
to which I have alluded, and which the present gathering is so fitted 
to awaken. 

Old Dartmouth has ever been famous among the Colleges for the 
number of its graduates who have entered the clerical profession ; and 
I am ever thankful for having been myself accounted worthy of a 
place in the Christian ministry. But this ministry, as a profession, 
needs no advocacy from me. It stands high and prominent among 
the callings of the educated men of our country, and is certainly 
second to no other in the sphere of its usefulness. And more than 
this, I do but justly magnify a holy calling, by saying that it surpass- 
es all other professions, in its adaptedness to promote the highest in- 
terests of man, in all the conditions and prospects of his being. It 
has to do both with things seen and things not seen; but the crown 
of its joy will be received, and the consummation of its benefits will 
be sung, in everlasting songs in the life eternal. 

We honor the Clergy in the faithful discharge of their duties. 
We honor the Institutions whose training contributes to fill the ranks 
of a profession so indispensable to human well being, both here and 
hereafter. The Clergy are a blessing to the land, as preachers of right- 
eousness and examples of self-denying piety and beneficence. More 
than the members of any other profession, they are at the head of 
our educational institutions. They are among the most prominent 
of the leaders of the great benevolent enterprises of the age, and of 
the conductors of the religious press. And last, not least, they are 
the Missionaries of the Church to bear the cross of Christ to foreign 
lands. 

Our Alma Mater, Mr. President, has contributed its full share to 
provide for all these departments of usefulness and of high endeavor. 
I may be permitted to say that while I was Corresponding Secretary 



54 

of the American Home Missionary Society, and had much to do with 
young men just entering the ministry, I had frequent occasion to ad- 
mire the self-sacrificing enterprise of the sons of Dartmouth. If we 
wanted a man to occupy a position in advance of all others on our 
western borders — '' to go to the jumping-off-place," as was sometimes 
said — we looked for him among the graduates of this Institution, 
and were sure to find him here, or among the sons of one of the 
northern Colleges. 

Sir, I have said, very imperfectly, what perhaps I might have said 
better and more at large, had I been aware of your intention to call 
me up on this topic. If the Clergy of the sons of Dartmouth shall 
continue to honor their profession, as they have done in most cases, I 
doubt not that you, and all good men and true, who trace their early 
instruction to the same halls of learning and discipline, will not cease 
to honor them and to honor this home of our youthful and undying 
affections, on account of the large number it is raising up to preach 
glad tidings to the nations, and say unto Zion, " Thy God reigneth." 

The President : — Railroads. We loell reinfiember tliat among their 
merits is that of giving facilities for this joyous reunion. 

Mr. Edwards, of Keene, who has had as much as most men to 
do with their construction, will please answer for the railroads. 

T. M. Edwards, Esq. : Mr. President, — I am not unmindful of the 
honor of being called out on this occasion, but I am, nevertheless, 
admonished, by various indications, that it would not be prudent for 
me at this time, if ever, to enter upon a measured speech. 

The lateness of the hour, the vacated seats around me, the sense 
of satiety, if not of weariness, resting upon the faces, ^' eorum qui 
supersunt adhuc,' to use a phrase quite familiar in these anniversary 
proceedings, all impress me with the truth and frequent applicability 
of that sage though somewhat trite maxim, that the better part of 
valor is discretion. 

Beyond this I am not quite sure, you will permit me to say, that 
the subj ect which you have assigned to me is entirely in harmony 
with the topics which have engrossed attention through the day. 
We have been guests at a banquet exclusively literary and social. 
We have been engaged in communing in relation to the abstract ] in 
relation to principles, truths and sentiments presented and illustrated 
in rich and glowing language, and interspersed with flashes of wit 
and humor. Now, every thing connected with the great feature in 
our system of internal improvements, to which your sentiment relates, 
is of a gross, material and merely practical character ; and however 
much, even in its present imperfect state of development, it may 
have ministered, or may now be ministering, to the convenience and 
to the interest of individuals, and to the growth and prosperity of the 
country, it certainly presents no very fit theme for the poet or the 
orator, and could hardly prefer any other claim to admission into this 
presence, than the one to which you have referred in your opening 



55 

remarks, viz., the facilities which it has furnished for bringing to- 
gether, from distant parts of the country, so many of the scattered 
sons of this ancient College, and reuniting them at this friendly fes- 
tival on the scene of their early and most cherished associations. So 
far as the Railroad has contributed to this result, it is entitled, here and 
now, to our favorable estimation and to our gratitude. 

In this connection I must ask to be indulged in a passing notice 
of your very civil reference to myself, as having had some experience 
in railroad matters. It is true that to the neglect and abandonment 
of a profession, the study and practice of which is a very usual se- 
quence to college life, I have devoted some 3'-ears to the charge of the 
construction and management of a railroad ; and there was a time 
when I should have regarded an allusion to this fact, as being, as it 
is now intended, complimentary, having idly supposed that in aiding 
in achieving a public risk of this character, I was contributing some- 
thing to an important public benefaction. But so disastrous has been 
the result of many of the railroad enterprises in our own and the 
neighboring States, to those with whom they have originated, and by 
whom they have been sustained and carried on to completion, as you, 
Sir, I think, have some reason to know ; that so far from claiming 
any credit here for the part which I have enacted, I am rather dis- 
posed to ignore the whole subject, and to be quite content if my con- 
nection with them shall not subject me to a visitation similar to that 
which you felt it your duty to inflict, for a very different offence, upon 
the honorable gentleman from Ohio, to wit, an arraignment on in- 
dictment found against me by the body of this Association. If I 
were compelled to plead, I should be obliged to confess, and could 
offer nothing in extenuation but the fact, of having aided somewhat 
in the work before alluded to, of promoting and facilitating this pleas- 
ant gathering, and, perchance, of much larger assemblages to be 
had at our future triennial meetings. This I should expect would 
at least be received in mitigation of punishment. 

Having said all that I desire to say, Mr. President, in relation to 
this special assignment, I should very willingly, if time permitted, 
briefly refer to a more prominent topic of the occasion, viz., the pres- 
ent condition of the Institution towards which we sustain a common 
relation, and in the welfare and prosperity of which we feel a common 
interest. 

Having passed the last week here, in a service connected with the 
College, I have had a more favorable opportunity of becoming ac- 
quainted with its existing arrangements, and of renewing and bright- 
ening my recollection of its earlier condition, than I could hope to 
have enjoyed under other circumstances. 

The comparison of the past and the present, to which this renewed 
acquaintance has necessarily led, shews obviously much change and 
much improvement. 

Without derogating from the great credit which is justly due to 
its founders; and early and later managers, but tendering all honor 



56 

and gratitude to them for their timely, earnest, faithful and almost 
unrewarded labors, it is not too much, I believe, to say that there has 
been no period in its history when this great Educational Agency has 
possessed so large a power for usefulness, or has been so worthy of the 
regard, respect, and veneration of its Alumni, and of the confidence 
and patronage of the community, as at the present time. A largely 
increased number of students; enlarged accommodations ; a more 
numerous corps of able and efficient instructors ; more extensive libra- 
ries ; other appliances for facilitating the acquisition of knowledge, 
newly added ; a more comprehensive course of study ; careful atten- 
tion to moral as well as mental training ; all furnish unerring indica- 
tions that this Institution at least keeps pace with other kindred in- 
stitutions, in the march of improvement, and prepares herself in ad- 
vance to respond to a growing demand for a more varied, thorough, 
and profound collegiate education. 

I will only add. Sir, that it must be the earnest wish of all her sons, 
as it is mine, that " Old Dartmouth " may long continue to occupy 
the honorable position which she has so long enjoyed among the lite- 
rary institutions of the country. 

The President : — We have heard from two of the learned profes- 
sions. My friend, Mr. Ordronaux, furnishes a sentiment calling for a 
response from the other. 

The Medical Profession. Bonus Medicus custos populi. 
Pr. Mussey will please take us under his care. 

3Ir. President, — I had no expectation of being called upon for re- 
marks upon this occasion. Had I been requested to give you a lec- 
ture on Surgical Anatomy, or to describe an amputation, or the meth- 
od of dressing a broken leg, or of gouging an eye secundum artem, I 
would not hesitate to make the attempt, if the materials suitable for 
the demonstration were before me ; but, vegetable eater as I have 
long been, and wholly untrained to making speeches over a table 
covered with the scattered and half devoured remains of animal car- 
casses, I must be permitted to decline the honor so kindly offered. 

It is with no slight gratification that I have witnessed in this as- 
sembly the outpourings of wit under the inspiration of no other liquor 
than the pure beverage of Paradise. Why, Sir, this attic salt streams 
out at every pore, and fills our saloon with its sparkling atmosphere. 

May every son of Dartmouth show his regard for the wine of 
Eden, by coming up to the altar of humanity and taking the solemn 
vow, never to drinh any other. 

The President : — As Dr. Mussey declines to make a demonstration, 
we turn to one of his successors, well known as a ^' Great Medicine," 
and ask Dr. Peaslee to favor us with a prescription or a lecture. 

Dr. E. R. Peaslee : Mr. President, — As the venerable Professor 



57 

who has just spoken could better deliver a lecture on Surgery, I sup- 
pose that from me you would rather expect something on Anatomy 
and Physiology. 

The dispersive tendencies of the Alumni of Dartmouth have been 
alluded to on this occasion, and I will venture to suggest an explana- 
tion of the fact. The students of this College are, most of them, fully 
developed men, physically, even when they enter College, the av- 
erage age being three or four years more than in Yale and Harvard. 
Many of them have in fact previously acquired, by their own exer- 
tions, the means to defray the expenses of their education. Such 
men have of course acquired a habit of self-reliance ; and when they 
have at length graduated and completed their professional studies, they 
go out determined and fully expecting to succeed ; and they keep go- 
ing, till they find a good place. As a body they seem to be thorough- 
ly imbued with the sentiment expressed by Pope : 

" The mouse that ever sticks to one poor Jiole, 
Can never be a mouse of any soul." 

So that you have to look the whole world over to find them, but 
when you do find them, it is generally in the right place. 

Perhaps, Sir, you may be inclined to demand an apology from me 
for comparing the men of Dartmouth — men in the noblest sense of 
the word — with the diminutive animal just mentioned. But I have 
good authority, poetical and otherwise, for so doing. In the first 
place, the men of Dartmouth are, every where I believe, the ^' mus- 
cle" of the community of which they form a part : and this word is 
from the Latin mus-culus, as I have had occasion to say to young 
men. Burns has said — 

" The best laid plans of mice and men 
Oft gang awry." 

And not much more elevated is Grainger's invocation : 

" Now, Muse, let 's sing of rats !" 

But it is not fit that I should occupy the time at this late hour. I 
propose. Sir, one of the Alumni of Dartmouth ; who emigrated from 
this to another State, and who also kept going (upward) till he found 
himself in a very good place. I will not name him, lest I disturb 
that modesty which is as marked a characteristic as his rare merits. 
I propose — 

The Royall Professor of Law in Harvard University : Our Pres- 
ident on this occasion. In whatever state we find him, in whatev- 
er condition, in whateyer positio7i, he does honor alike to all. '' Omnis 
Aristippu7n decuit color j et STATUS, et resj' 



The Association here adjourned, to meet at the close of the public 
dinner on Commencement day : at which time the President, on 
taking the chair, said the members of the Association might now 



5& 

expect to liear from their absent friends, Mr. Duncan being no longer 
among the number. 

Wm. IT. Duncan, Esq., one of the Committee of Arrangements, 
read the following letters. 

[from rev. BENNET TYLER, D. D.] 

East Windsor Hill, July 23, 1855. 
Kev. S. G. Brown, 

Dear Sir : Yours of the 20th inst. is just received. It would 
give me great pleasure to attend your Commencement if the state of 
my health and other engagements would permit. But I must deny 
myself the satisfaction. I regret it the more, on account of the meet- 
ing of the Alumni, which I should rejoice to attend, with the hope 
of meeting many of my former pupils, some of whom I have not seen 
since "Pro auctoriiate niihi commtssa,^' eos admitteham "ad gra- 
dum prvinum in ar'ihus.'' I need not say how cordially I should 
greet them, as well as many others of the earlier and later graduates. 
Dartmouth may well be proud of her sons. I trust they will not 
be wanting in affection for their mother. 

The few years of my life which were devoted to the interest of the 
College have awakened in my breast a regard for its welfare which I 
shall not cease to cherish while life lasts. That it may ever be the 
seat of sound learning and the centre of a healthful moral influence, 
is the prayer of 

Yours most affectionately, 

B. TYLER. 



[from HON. RICHARD FLETCHER.] 

Boston, July 25, 1855. 
Dea?' Sir : When your favor, dated the 21st, and mailed the 23d 
instant, reached me, it was too late for me to return an answer, or go 
in person to Hanover in season for y^our dinner to-day. If your kind 
letter had been received at an earlier period, it would have given me 
much pleasure to have been present at the meeting of the Alumni. 
With thanks for your obliging communication, 

I am, very respectfully and truly yours, 

RICHARD FLETCHER. 
Wm. H. Duncan, Esq. 



[FROM HON. DANIEL M. CHRISTIE.] 

Dover, July 23, 1855. 
Dea:r Sir : I have yours of the 20th, in which you, in behalf 
of the Committee of Arrangements, extend to me a polite and par- 
ticular invitation to be present at the approaching Anniversary of the 
Alumni of Dartmouth College. 



59 

It would be liigWy gratifying to me to be with you on the occasion, 
but indispensable engagements will deprive me of that pleasure. 

With assurances of much respect for the Committee, and the kind- 
est regard for yourself, 

I am your mucb obliged friend and servant, 

DANIEL M. CHRISTIE. 
Wm. H. Duncan, Esq., Hanover. 



[from rev. JOHN WHEELER, D. D.] 

Burlington, July 23, 1855. 
To W. H. Duncan, Esq., 

Dear Sir : I regret that it will not be in my power to comply 
with the request of the Committee to be present at the gathering of 
the Alumni, at Dartmouth, this week. But, though absent in body, 
I would be present in spirit, and, by these presents, beg you to greet 
the multitude of brothers with the warmest expressions of fellow- 
ship. 

I would add a word respecting my personal historical recollections 
of the period of my connection with College, (from 1812 to 1816) 
but it will be so much better done by the accomplished orator of the 
day, who I learn intends to speak of historical matters, that I will 
only say it was a transition period of the Institution ; one in 
which, rising from her couch of quiet growth, she cast off the bonds 
of childhood, and stepped forth with the vigorous development of a 
youthful Titan, And then " shaking her invincible locks,'' she 
seized her spear and went forth to battle for the rights of all the in- 
stitutions of civilization and culture, that pertain to the being and 
growth of our beloved country. I now look upon her, irrespective 
of times, of parties, of persons, political or ecclesiastical, as then re- 
sisting a particular statute, in a lawful way, only that she might re- 
pose in the bosom of that law, which makes possible the freedom of 
social life, and which constitutes the harmony of cultivated humanity. 
The men who resolved for her ; the men who counselled for her ; the 
men who pleaded for her; and the men, who, in the Temple of Na- 
tional justice, determined and decided for her, are gone ; — all gone, 
down to the dead. But she lives. She lives, the symbolic keystone 
in the arch of religious, literary and commercial institutions which 
are free; and from her high eminence now shines, radiant and efful- 
gent, like a morning star, in her literary beauty. Thus she will live 
while her Alumni study her lessons and practice her virtues. 

Your gathering is an occasion, when literary men, and great men, 
and benefactors, as such, are remembered ; but a day in which the 
men of physical labor and toil are usually forgotten. But it is by 
the sweat of their brow that the ease and the leisure, by which cul- 
ture becomes possible to social life, is obtained. Talk as we may, 
think as we may, they substitute the nov gtCj on which society erects 
her structures, and by which she maintains her physical life. I call 



60 

to mind one of these men, who learned his letters and his catechism 
by '■'■ light-wood candles ;'' who was but six weeks in any school, 
until by his own labor he paid for six months' tuition and board at 
an Academy, under the care of '^ Master Hubbard,'^ afterward Pro- 
fessor of Mathematics in our College \ Professor Hubbard, a man 
who should not be forgotten ; whose whole being, instead of working 
toward right lines and rectangles, was ever imparting a life of the 
affections, in graceful elipses and curvilinear lines, and now and then 
parabolic curves of perhaps indefinite extension. Under this affection- 
ate teacher, the young man made such progress that he soon taught 
school ) but finally, with axe in hand, entered the woods of a moun- 
tain town, felled the trees for a farm, cast in the seed, and waited for 
his harvest. Exchanges were made, and he was soon a country mer- 
chant, and was present at the commencement of Dartmouth College 
in 1816. After the exercises of the day, as he was sitting in his 
chair, and bidding adieu to a Professor of the College, he said, •' If 
the Trustees intend to test their rights by a suit at law, and should 
want means, I have a tliousand dollars at their command. '^ 

The late Professor Adams has said if it had not been for this un- 
solicited, unsuspected, unthought of aid, the great case of Dartmouth 
College would not have been commenced. 

And the late Charles Marsh has spoken of the offer, which was at 
once transmitted to the Board of Trustees, then in session, as a light 
breaking upon blank darkness. It was a prophecy of hope, which at 
once fixed the resolution and determined the course of the Trustees. 

What would the College now be without the aid of the '' Indus- 
trial class -y^ without Chandler, and Appleton, and Evans, and Phillips 
— what would our students be without the numerous off-shoots from 
their class, and especially without their material aid in the progress 
of their studies ? 

I beg to give you, as a sentiment for the occasion, and for every 
Commencement of Dartmouth College — 

The Industrial Classes of Society : — The strength of its physical 
life, the nov cttoj of its st?'uctures — the roots which have nourished us 
all. 

Yours with highest regard, 

JOHN WHEELER. 

At the close of the reading of this letter the name of the munifi- 
cent donor being called for, the President said he understood it was 
John B. Wheeler, Esq., late of Orford, the father of President 
Wheeler. 



[from RT. rev. CARLTON CHASE, D. D.] 

Claremont, July 24, 1855. 
3fy dear Sir : It is with difficulty I yield to the circumstances 
which deprive me of the pleasure of joining, in happy reunion, with 
the Alumni of an Institution whose son I am proud in claiming to be. 



61 

Such an assemblage of cultivated minds, drawn together by the 
noble sympathies of kindred scholarship ; coming in, too, as well 
from the outposts of social progress, laden with the fresh observations 
of learned adventure, as from the various positions of honor and use- 
fulness in the old fields of knowledge, enriched with stores of expe- 
rience and wisdom, cannot fail to present an occasion for refined and 
exalted interchanges, such as does not often turn up in the course of 
our pursuits. 

In contemplation of such an assemblage I feel impressed with the 
thought of the momentous issues which may depend on the character 
of the individuals who compose it, and on the use they make of the 
elevation to which knowledge has raised them. There is, indeed, 
intrinsic beauty in truth, which is of itself a reward to the scholar, — 
but if there be not also power and use, the moral world is a chimera. 

I trust I shall be pardoned for thus briefly and hastily giving ex- 
pression to the feelings which the habits of my sacred profession in- 
cline me to indulge in view of your meeting to-morrow. Let it be 
remembered, that the true scholar is one who receives light to yield 
it again. 

I pray you, my dear Sir, in my behalf, to present to the brother- 
hood the assurance of the high consideration and respect with which 

I am their, as also your most obliged servant, 

CARLTON CHASE, Class of 1817. 

Wm. H. Duncan, Esq., Chairman of Com., &c. 



[from HON. JOHN AIKEN.] 

Andover, July 21, 1855. 
Wm. H. Duncan, Esq., 

Mi/ dear Sir: I have just received your note, written in behalf of 
the Committee of Arrangements of the Society of Alumni of Dart- 
month College, inviting me to be present at the approaching Anni- 
versary ; or, if that cannot be, to furnish some memorial for the din- 
ner hour. 

Let me assure you and your brethren of the Committee, and my 
brethren of the Society, that it would afford me very great pleasure 
to be present. It so happens, however, that the Trustees of Phillips 
Academy, of which body I have the honor to be a member, will hold 
their Annual Meeting on Tuesday next, and will occupy, in their 
necessary business, the whole of that day. I deem it my duty to at- 
tend this meeting, so that I could, at the very earliest, reach Hanover 
on the afternoon of Wednesday, after your dinner, hour. 

Though thus held back from your festivities, I shall be with you in 
spirit, and vie with the very best of you in crowning with honors our 
Alma Mater. 

The occasion will be consecrated by many tender and precious re- 
collections. My own College life, from 1815 to 1819, was filled with 
incidents of great moment, and to those immediately concerned, of 
thrilling interest. 



62 

Of tbe Hon. and Reverend Trustees of that day not one remains, 
and of m}' instructors in the College, Dr. Shurtleff, and Dr. Bond, 
of Philadelphia, are the only survivors. To the memory of the honored 
dead your orator has, no doubt paid the deserved and appropriate 
tribute. In passing let me thank Prof. Brown for coming to the 
rescue in your hour of extremity. Though I thank him, let me tell 
him there is one topic appropriate to this occasion, to which he can- 
not do justice. Pie cannot speak in fitting terms of the character 
and doings of my loved and honored President, Francis Brown. 
This lack of service, made almost necessary by the relations which 
you orator sustains to the subject, 1 would, if I might, supply. 

Pres. Brown entered on the duties of his office in the autumn of 
1815, and closed his active duties as a teacher at the Commencement 
of 1819. His inaugural discourse, some portions of which I can 
still repeat, was in Latin, written, as was said, in part at least, at the 
taverns on his way to Hanover. He was in the prime of early 
manhood, being but 31 years old, and yet he had the dignity, the 
maturity and the wisdom of riper years. 

In person Pres. Brown was singularly dignified and commanding : 
one of the very noblest specimens of manhood that my eyes ever 
beheld. And yet his dignity sat upon him so gracefully, that the be- 
holder discovered at once that it was but one of the native proper- 
ties of the outer man, and no exaggerated exponent of the dignity 
of the inner. His large, full blue eye, and genial, beaming face, in- 
vited confidence, yet his whole expression was so sagacious and so 
penetrating, that no student ever dreamed of deceiving him, or pre- 
sumed on unbecoming familiarity with him. "When the occasion re- 
quired he could be severe^ terribly severe. This severity, however, 
had nothing of personal anger in it, but savored rather of grief, or 
wounded love. To govern young men was his natural and easy work. 
The language of command he never, or seldom used. A loisli, or re- 
quest, expressed in the mildest and kindest form, was fully equivalent 
to a command, and we all took delight in pleasing him, for we both 
loved and honored him. 

His talent for teaching was not inferior to his talent for govern- 
ing, and this talent found occasion for abundant exercise. During 
his whole administration, the entire instruction of the senior class 
devolved on him, and from the end of his first year till his health be- 
gan to fail, he heard the junior or sophomore class one recitation 
each day. For all these recitations he carefully prepared himself, so 
that no slipshod preparation on the part of a student could escape un- 
exposed. If a topic should be started, or a book be referred to, with 
which the President was not familiar, he would, by sagacious ques- 
tioning, draw out what the student knew of that topic or book, and 
then, by his sharper analysis, his keener and more penetrating in- 
sight, or his power of broader generalization, he was prepared to 
discuss the subject in a way that satisfied the student who furnished 
all the material, that the President understood the matter much 



63 



better than lie did himself. The mind of Pres. Brown was emi- 
nently sagacious and comprehensive, as well as discriminating. 

Pres. Brown could not in truth be called a greatly learned man. 
Occupied as he had been, and at his period of life, this could not be. 
Yet he was a man of vigorous and cultivated mind, and a scholar. 
And he was capable of appreciating good learning, and all his in- 
fluences tended toward a sound, thorough, and comprehensive scholar- 
ship. Accordingly in his day, though the Faculty of instruction 
was very inadequate, and greatly over taxed, consisting as it did of 
the President, two Professors and one or two Tutors, and the facilities 
in the way of libraries and apparatus exceedingly small, there was 
much earnest and effective study in the College. The Catalogue will 
show small classes, but a large proportion of good scholars. 

The official life of the President was one of ceaseless toil. Vacations 
brought no rest to him. This was his season for begging money to meet 
the urgent wants of the College, and for taking counsel for its welfare. 
During the vacation of my Junior year. President Brown visited my 
native town, in the south part of the State, and collected of the farm- 
ers, in little sums, about $100, to help the College along in its deep 
distress and poverty. 

The eminent legal counsel of the College had a very high opin- 
ion of President Brown. No man could measure him more accurately 
than the late Jeremiah Mason. He regarded Mr. Brown as a very 
remarkable man; remarkable especially for the sagacity, clearness 
and strength of his judgment. More than once I have heard Mr. 
Mason say, '^Mr. Brown understood the College Case thoroughly, and 
could have argued it with eminent ability." 

In early manhood Mr. Brown was called to preside over a Board 
composed of men of great ability, dignity and wisdom ; and yet, in 
all these elements of character, young as he was, he was not a whit 
behind the very chiefest of them. 

I close with this sentiment : 

" The Memory of President Brown. It is embalmed in the 
hearts of all his pupils.^' 

Wishing for my brethren a most happy meeting, I subscribe 
myself, Your and their friend and brother, 

JOHN AIKEN. 



[from HON. RUFUS CHOATE.] 

Boston, July 25, 1855. 

My dear Sir : Your letter inviting me to attend the meeting of the 
Alumni of Dartmouth College reached me at so late an hour that I 
could not accept the invitation, nor suitably express my regret that I 
was unable to do so. 

I have heard with great pleasure of the proposal to form an Asso- 
ciation of our Alumni, which should mark their memory and their 
love of our Alma Mater by a meeting at every Commencement, and 



64 

had formed a general intention to be present at the first. I cannot 
doubt that the idea will be carried out, and that it will realize all the 
expectations of those who conceived it. Certainly my own affection 
for the now almost ancient school, and my sense of obligation to its 
teachings and its care, lose no strength as the happy days of my life 
there recede from me, nor does any thing which I have learned of 
other Colleges depress my estimation of its rank and claims. These 
I am sure are the sentiments of all the children of Dartmouth. To 
express and publish them, as well as to renew and strengthen the ties 
which unite all fellow students, will give a practical object and a real 
interest to these annual festivals. I hope some time to take my 
share in them. I am very cordially, 

Your friend and servant, 

RUFUS CHOxiTE. 
Daniel Blaisdell and others, Committee of Alumni. 



[from HON. GEORGE W. NESMITH.] 

Franklin, July 28, 1855. 
Wm. H. Duncan, Esq. : 

I thank you, my dear Sir, for your kind invitation to be present at 
the ensuing Anniversary of the Alumni of Dartmouth College. My 
business engagements must compel me to decline your invitation, as I 
shall be called to Malone, N. Y., on that day. 

I appreciate highly your new Association. I can imagine nothing 
but pleasure and utility to flow from it. I hope on some future occa- 
sion to be able to participate in your enjoyments. 

Allow me to suggest to the wise managers of your organization 
the importance of establishing, for the use of all the sons of Dart- 
mouth, a very broad and perfect platform upon which we can safely 
stand without jostling any off". We can see around us many beautiful 
erections of modern philanthropists, and more modern politicians, and 
we can copy therefrom all that is useful, and still leave much uncopied. 
But let me suggest to the wisdom that shall this year be assembled, 
if this annual feast is to be continued on our side of the Connecticut, 
the manifest propriety of extending forthwith a very perfect wooden 
platform from the house formerly inhabited by a renowned man by 
the name of Le Compt, thence westerly to the premises of the cel- 
ebrated Dr. Lewis, in the ancient town of Norwich. As we would 
save the bodies of all our learned and unlearned fellow citizens from 
the peril of death by drowning, you are permitted to draw upon 
me for my plank to finish up this model and much needed platform. 

Yours forever, 

GEORGE W. NESMITH. 



[from RICHARD B. KIMBALL, ESQ.] 

West Lebanon, July 23, 1855. 
My dear Duncan : Will you present my thanks to the Committee 
of Arrangements for the invitation you were kind enough to communi- 



65 

cate, to be present at the exercises of the Society of the Alumni on 
Wednesday next. I am sorry I cannot be with you ; and I request 
you distinctly to understand that it is because I must be on my way 
to New- York, and not because you have no wine at dinner; which 
you distinctly insinuate may be to me a trifling inconvenience ! I 
am sure I should not notice this innuendo, except that your note, being 
semi-official in its character, it seems to me I am bound to repel it. 
There are many grave reasons why wine should not be furnished at 
a public dinner. Tell me, is it not expected that every guest shall 
be in a situation to get on his feet when called up ? But what saith 
the ancient Roman ? 

" Magnum hoc vitium vino est, 
Pedes captat primum." 

Therefore away with the seductive article ! Let us not offend our 
weaker brethren — weaker in legs, I mean, of course. 

Seriously, it is an aggravation that I must leave here just as the chil- 
dren of " Old Dartmouth " — God bless her — are assembling for an 
interchange of happy thoughts and pleasing memories. Perhaps you 
will allow me to propose the following, that I may seem, to myself at 
least, to take some trifling part in your arrangements : 

Liberality of Sentiment : One of the softening graces of our 
Jiumanity. May the Alumni of Dartmouth retain and cherish this 
offsjpring of an enlightened education. 

Yours truly, 

RICHARD B. KIMBALL. 

Wm. H. Duncan, Esq., Hanover, N. H. 



[from HON. HARRY HIBBARD.] 

Bath, July 25, 1855. 

My dear Sir : Through accident, your letter in behalf of the Com- 
mittee of Arrangements, inviting me to be present at the meeting of 
the Alumni of Dartmouth to-day, has but just been received. It 
comes at an hour too late for me to say more than express the regret 
I feel at my inability, by reason of other engagements, to be with 
you upon an occasion which must draw around it so many incentives 
to enjoyment, not only from the intellectual and physical festiv- 
ities of the present, but from the renewed associations and recalled 
memories of the cherished past. 

Have the kindness to tender my acknowledgements to the other 
members of the Committee, and be assured that I am, 

Most truly yours, 

HARRY HIBBARD. 
William H. Duncan, Esq. 



66 

The President : — You are aware, gentlemen, that a short time 
since Alma Mater opened a little school — not by any means an in- 
fant school — which at the present rate of progress bids fair to rival not 
only Moor's Indian Charity School, but even the Classical Depart- 
ment itself. I give you, " The Chandler School of Science and the 
Arts,^' and call upon the Visitors of that Foundation for a response. 

F. B. Hayes, Esq., one of the Board of Visitors of the Chandler 
School, replied : 

Mr. President : — In obedience to your call, and at the request of my 
associate, I rise to respond to the sentiment with which you have hon- 
ored the Scientific Department of this College. At this festival, 
when your Alma Mater is surrounded by her own distinguished chil- 
dren, her adopted sons might well be silent ; and I had hoped, Sir, to 
have been permitted undisturbedly to listen to the words of wisdom 
or pleasant mirth falling from the lips of those about me, till now 
your order requires me to say something for the Chandler School. 

It perhaps may not be known to your guests, Mr. President, that 
the founder of this School owed to the sons of Dartmouth the first 
earnest desire, which afterwards grew into a determination, to obtain 
a liberal education. As Mr. Chandler informed me shortly before his 
death, he was a laborer on a farm at Fryeburgh, Maine, at about the 
time he was twenty-one years of age. One evening he was sent on 
an errand to an inn in Fryeburgh, where he found two young men 
conversing upon an interesting topic in a manner which attracted his 
attention. He listened with deep interest to their discussion, and, 
upon leaving the house, inquired who these young men were, and was 
informed that they were students of Dartmouth College, returning to 
their homes after the close of a term. As Mr. Chandler related, 
in his walk to his home he reflected upon the subject of the conversa- 
tion he had listened to, and felt keenly his inability to think and con- 
verse as those young men did, which deficiency he very properly at- 
tributed to the defects of his education. He said that it flashed across 
his mind that he must obtain a collegiate education, so as to have the 
pleasure and power these young men possessed in their intellectual 
attainments. After this determination, there were many difficulties in 
the way of accomplishing his wishes, but these difficulties vanished 
before his energetic character. He continued his agricultural labors, 
and interested his friends upon the subject dearest to his heart, until 
he procured the means and privilege of entering Phillips Exeter Acad- 
emy, on the foundation provided for indigent students. His zeal in 
literary pursuits commended him to his friends, and with their assist- 
ance he obtained by loans what was necessary to defray his expenses 
while a student at Harvard College. After his graduation he was 
for many years a successful teacher, and entering at middle life into 
mercantile pursuits as a partner with one of his old pupils, he ac- 



■ 67 

quired an ample property, with whicli he determined to benefit his na- 
tive State. The disposition of his wealth was made by him when he 
had given the subject many years of reflectioUj and was the result of 
his best judgment, formed after consultation with his friends, and 
earnest and frequent prayer that the Source of wisdom would guide 
him to a right decision. By his will, having suitably provided for 
numerous members of his family, and kindly remembered some of 
his friends, and contributed to objects of charity, he made the munif- 
icent bequest of fifty thousand dollars to this College, and the residue 
of his estate, amounting to more than thirty thousand dollars, he gave 
to the New-Hampshire Asylum for the Insane. Thus did this excel- 
lent man, having no children of his own, leave with Christian benev- 
olence a rich inheritance to the youth, and the helpless and afflicted 
of his native State. 

It gives me pleasure, Mr. President, to say for myself and associate, 
that we find, from our own observation as well as by the report of 
others, the Chandler School is doing its work well. It has not been 
the object, as you know. Sir, of its officers and managers to hold this 
department before the public with flattering promises of what it can 
do, and ostentatious display of what it has done. It has been sup- 
posed wiser that the progress of the School should be actually sure 
and steady, rather than apparently brilliant in the outset, lest it should 
have a fitful existence, and disappoint in the end the hopes of its 
friends and public expectation. By pursuing the more careful policy 
in its management, we trust we shall lay a deep and firm foundation 
for it, on which we can build a superstructure as enduring and beauti- 
ful as truth and virtue. The practical usefulness of this department 
will, it is hoped, be soon apparent to all. Its progress will be hand 
in hand with the Academical Department of the College, and all the 
Alumni and friends of the College will continue to feel a worthy 
pride in the undiminished honor and extending usefulness of this ven- 
erable Seat of Learning. 

Having thus unworthily spoken to the subject of your sentiment, 
Mr. President, I should resume my seat, if the remembrance of the 
words of the orator of yesterday, the interesting letters that have 
just been read, and this Anniversary, did not excite in me emotions 
which compel me to ask your indulgence for a few moments longer. 

This day completes the fiftieth Anniversary since there were grad- 
uated at this College two young men who were room-mates through 
their entire collegiate life, and were particularly noted by their fellow 
students for the friendship they manifested toward each other. Never 
did an unkind word pass from the lips, nor an unworthy thought rest 
for a moment in the breast of either of them injurious to the other. 
In scholarship they stood together, sharing equally in the highest' hon- 
ors of the College, the one delivering the Salutatory and the other the 
Valedictory oration before those who were gathered in these halls 
half a century ago to-day. Afterwards one was appointed to a tutor- 
ship, and the other to the preceptorship of Moor's School at this 



68 

College. In after life their paths were separated, hut their hearts 
were undivided, and no one rejoiced more at the distinction of an- 
other, than did the one when his former chum was promoted to the 
elevated seat of President of the College. The friend rejoiced not 
only that his classmate had attained this dignity, but that the newly 
elected President was competent to fill, with honor to the College and 
the country, that high position during the most troublous and ex- 
citing times Dartmouth has experienced. I allude, as it has already 
occurred to you. Sir, to the season of the presidency of that disting- 
uished man whose name the orator of yesterday could not utter, from 
sentiments of filial delicacy, but whose name on this Anniversary 
should receive full honor. At this fraternal meeting, when it is per- 
missible to speak of matters of a personal nature, I hope I may be 
allowed, honored as I am in bearing the name of both these friends 
and classmates, to speak reverent words of the friend of the parent 
who would have, (how gladly !) if living, discharged the duty of 
friendship. 

From my earliest youth, Sir, I have heard of the moral purity of 
the late President Brown, and how well he performed his part when 
he was fighting in the front rank with great men in the cause of 
Dartmouth College. Not only from a parent's lips, but from others 
well qualified to form correct opinions upon the subject, the same 
story has been told me, all in honor of the energy, the prudence, the 
unflagging and self-sacrificing devotion of the late President. In an 
interview with Dartmouth's most distinguished son, I had a very in- 
teresting account of her great case, and of the distinguished service 
President Brown rendered the College. It is proper that we should 
preserve in fresh remembrance the services of the great and good 
men, who, doing what they could in their time, have passed to their 
reward ; and let us never forget, certainly we will not on this occasion, 
those who have been the founders and distinguished benefactors of 
this Institution. 

In conclusion, Mr. President, I desire to oifer as a sentiment, — 
Ever increasing and enduring prosperity to Dartmouth College^ 
founded ( to use the words of Mr. Webster) hy Eleazer Wheelock, 
re-founded hy Francis Broivn. 

The President : — Is there any further business before the Associa- 
tion, which now stands upon its adjournment. 

Professor Alpheus Grosby made some remarks upon the great in- 
terest and enjoyment of the occasion, — classmates meeting classmates, 
and friends friends, in many cases after a long lapse of years, the de- 
parted brought to remembrance and their memory honored, and the 
strange, romantic history of the College reviewed, — Yox clamatis in 
deserto. He then remarked upon our obligation to impart, so far as 
we could, of what we had ourselves enjoyed, to those of our brethren 
who had been unable to come up to our festival, and made the follow- 
ing motions to that end : 

1 . " That the best thanks of the Association be presented to Pro- 



69 

fessor Brown for his valuable and eloquent Address, and tliat a copy 
of it be requested for the press." 

2. ^'That a collection be now taken up for the purpose of defray- 
ing the expense of printing the Address, with an accompanying 
Sketch of the Proceedings of the Meeting, and sending a copy of the 
same to each Alumnus whose address can be ascertained." 

These motions were seconded and adopted unanimously. 

The President : — The present Association of the Alumni had its 
origin in a movement of the Class of 1827. It is highly proper that 
the motion for an enduring memorial of its proceedings should come 
from a member of that Class. 

I give you as the closing sentiment, '^ Our Alma Mater. We 
have diligently endeavored to strengthen the bonds which hind us to 
her, hy faitlifidly complying with her wishes, expressed through her 
President, that ive shoidd have a good time'' 



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